Jordan Schneider

American companies are selling RL environments to China. chinatalk.media/p/the-us-is-…

Politico: The Tech Right Pivots Left Nowhere is that hard pivot more on display than with Alex Karp, the CEO and co-founder of secretive tech giant Palantir, which bet massively on Trump 2.0 and became an administration darling in the process Inside Palantir’s Manhattan lair, in an exclusive sitdown with Playbook, Karp — who once criticized the Democratic Party as “totally irresponsible” — deployed the word ‘progressive’ eight times to describe his philosophy while acknowledging Democrats ‘absolutely’ corrected in 2026 enough to win back his support in 2028. Karp: “I’ve been a Democrat my whole life. I grew up in a far left environment. I know more about being a progressive than almost anybody on the planet, and I absolutely believe Palantir— all of our products are essentially progressive.” Link to article: politico.com/newsletters/pla…

I remember the first time I walked into the Oval Office to brief President Biden. I'd just been appointed as the White House Special Advisor for AI. The President sat behind the Resolute desk and began with a single question: "What is the worst harm that AI could enable?" I had no shortage of worries. We talked about the pace of technological progress — how, thanks to better chips and algorithms, what was cutting-edge that day would be commonplace within a couple of years. We talked about how high the ceiling on intelligence was, and about the dangers that AI would likely bring in areas like cybersecurity and bioweapons. We talked about how technology was fast and government was slow. Then he asked about the benefits. He cared about ending cancer as much as anything in the world, and AI — managed well — offers more hope for that than anything else. Most of all, we talked about what became the argument of the book my White House colleague @TantumSCollins and I have written: that democracies must lead in inventing this technology, turn that lead into a lasting advantage, and do it all without betraying their own values. Achieving all three at once will be a bitter struggle. Every choice pits security against liberty, speed against caution, power against principle. Today THE BITTER STRUGGLE is out from Crown, in hardcover, ebook, and audio. It’s our account of what happened, what’s coming, and what’s at stake. We don’t pretend the answers are easy — in some ways we’re more worried than when we started. But these questions are too important to be debated only behind closed doors, including the door to the Oval Office. We hope you will join the debate. penguinrandomhouse.com/books…

FWIW I think the proper focus of attention is "Intentionally diverted X% of compute to China in a fashion designed to obscure this, in the interests of China and against that of U.S., while being blessed by individuals responsible for and/or influential in U.S. policy."

Before Nvidia's lawyer started emailing BIS staff about their Megaspeed investigation, he called Jeffrey Kessler, who runs BIS. He wanted to know whether BIS was involved in Singapore's recent detention of Alice Huang Nvidia says Teter didn't know of the affair at the time

Did China Honeytrap Jensen Huang? + Apple's Siri Reboot & Gojiberry AI's CEO xitter.twitterapi.xyz/i/broadcasts/2KoXbqOLK…

Just in: TSMC to invest up to $500m each in @AnthropicAI & @OpenAI via their IPOs. TSMC will also invest up to $500m into semiconductor & related companies via an investment holding co. These are unusual moves for Chip Kong, which prefers to stay neutral.

Nvidia execs ran a smear campaign against proponents of chip export controls, bullied people on the Hill, they made so many enemies and now no one is afraid of them. I think we are still in the tip of the iceberg phase of what is going to come out.

So. Big Jensengate question. Who gets the apology interview? Oprah retired. Barbara Walters passed. My bet: Ben Thompson. With Joe Rogan or All-In as runners up.

It is beyond inappropriate that leadership at the Department of Commerce apparently discussed an ongoing law enforcement investigation involving Megaspeed and Nvidia with Nvidia's General Counsel. It's clear that Congressional oversight is urgently needed here. To give an idea how bad this is: imagine if FBI agents were in the middle of a secret, long-running criminal investigation into a company, and FBI leadership discussed the status of that investigation with the General Counsel of the target company's primary business partner. That is no different than what apparently happened here. Law enforcement agencies (which include the Department of Commerce) cannot discuss ongoing investigations, and particularly not with companies directly or indirectly involved with cases. Everything about the way Commerce has handled Megaspeed's dealing with Nvidia is suspect. Commerce has shielded Megaspeed from regulatory action at every turn, and may have shielded Megaspeed from legal action as well. Now we know the reason why the Department of Commerce has still not blocked Megaspeed from receiving Nvidia chips: because the investigation inside Commerce into Megaspeed was halted entirely after Commerce communicated directly with Nvidia about it. And don't forget, the reason this happened is because Commerce is refusing to enforce EXISTING U.S. export controls, which would have prevented this. Current US export control regulations actually require Megaspeed, and any other non-trusted company in many countries, to get an export license from the Department of Commerce before they receive any large orders of AI chips. But Commerce publicly stated it will not enforce those regulations, and also has not bothered to replace them. Commerce could take action today to systematically solve this issue. It should: (1) immediately enforce the existing export control regulations that would require licenses for large AI chip shipments to non-trusted entities in Southeast Asia and other countries, such as Megaspeed; and (2) close obviously loopholes in controls that permit companies like Megaspeed to provide remote access of AI chips to China, or Chinese companies like Aivres (which is the US subsiary of the Entity Listed company Inspur, and provided Megaspeed with many of its Nvidia chips) to buy AI chips in the United States. Every day these loopholes persist, Congress must demand answers. Commerce's non-enforcement of export controls has metastasized into a major scandal, involving one of the largest companies in the world. Congress must prioritize this oversight, and it should be bipartisan. And Congress should immediately pass the many bipartisan bills that would tighten export controls and that are currently pending, such as the AI Overwatch Act, MATCH Act, Chip Security Act. These bills can't afford to wait, they should go today.

we spent years asking for USG visibility into AI chip shipments. turns out the MSS got there first.

*NVIDIA INTERVENED IN US PROBE OF MEGASPEED: NYT

*NVIDIA INTERVENED IN US PROBE OF MEGASPEED: NYT

Best founders I backed had no hobbies. Only one obsession — the company.

NEW: We are short Nvidia $NVDA. We believe Nvidia has a significant China problem. Please see our full report and disclosures now available on our website, link in bio.

Note that Nvidia’s spokesman John Rizzo has put out multiple statements in recent weeks that we now know are false. Unclear, of course, if he believed them to be true at the time.

Nvidia’s board stated today that it has found “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised” as a result of Jensen’s actions. They are initiating an independent investigation overseen by a committee of independent directors, assisted by outside independent counsel, that will examine all available information. This will be an unbiased, exhaustive and thorough investigation given the fiduciary responsibilities of these independent directors. Jensen said that “I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.” I have known Jensen for almost 30 years. I simply do not believe he would ever knowingly do anything to disadvantage either America or Nvidia. The only thing he has ever said to me about China is the absolute importance of keeping the American hardware ecosystem, led by Nvidia, ahead of China. That’s it. More detailed thoughts follow below:

On the Jensen Huang-Alice Huang affair, you have to give the MSS credit for running another successful op. They are good and getting better. I have seen some takes that it is no big deal he had an affair with an alleged PRC spy because he needed no pillow talk convincing to push for looser export controls, but that misses a few things: He is (was?) text and phone buddies with President Trump, so if he divulged anything about his conversations with Trump to her, or his thoughts about Trump or chatter about China policy or frankly anything from Trump, that would be valuable to any foreign intelligence service, and especially to the MSS; Was she ever alone with his phone or computer, say when he got up to use the bathroom? Are Nvidia IT/device policies for travel to Taiwan and Singapore looser than those for travel to the mainland? What value would there be to the MSS to have physical access to the devices of the Nvidia CEO?; He is the chip allocator in chief, so a good relationship with him likely meant more chips for the MegaSpeed front and the entities back in the PRC to which those chips flowed. With the new Congress, expect subpoenas and public hearings in which he is trashed and he and Nvidia are further damaged. What a win for the MSS, to have such access to the head of the most important company in the world, and to now get to watch as politicians and shorts attack him and Nvidia. There is rarely just one lie, so don’t be surprised if the blast radius from this mess expands. And there is already the SuperMicro case…