![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/DJT-thumbnail-2.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
President Trump can\u2019t believe Jensen Huang doesn\u2019t own his own\u00a0plane. <\/p>\n
Hours before he departs for his highly anticipated China summit, the president has been arranging for the billionaire cofounder of Nvidia to join the who\u2019s who of Fortune\u00a0500 CEOs preparing to travel to Beijing. Also in the group are Citigroup\u2019s Jane Fraser, arguably the most powerful woman in finance, and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who recently gave the president an honorary (if slightly tongue-in-cheek) \u201cSalesman of the Year\u201d award for helping the jetmaker sell hundreds of planes. <\/p>\n
Huang is a late but welcome addition to the party. For one of America\u2019s most successful CEOs and the man whose company\u2019s chips power the AI boom, the president is happy to make room, and Huang winds up hitching a ride aboard Air Force One, sharing the jet with Elon Musk, among others. The only reason Huang wasn\u2019t included earlier is because he didn\u2019t call to ask.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As I sit across the Resolute Desk from the president in the Oval Office while we talk about his upcoming trip, it\u2019s clear that arrangements like this are exactly the kind of deal the president likes to make\u2014quick, informal, and one in which he can declare himself a clear winner. He prides himself on his ability to get anyone on the phone and achieve measurable results, whether he\u2019s talking with a world leader or an American company he wants to help.<\/p>\n
In a wide-ranging conversation that spanned an hour\u2014and covered topics from tariffs to AI data centers to the war in Iran\u2014the president outlined the broader, top-down dealmaking mentality he\u2019s using to try to reinvigorate the American economy.\u00a0(A small group of Fortune Media executives joined us in Trump\u2019s office; they did not take part in the interview.)<\/p>\n
With the help of Wall Street\u2013savvy cabinet members like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trump has turned old economic norms on their head. The president has been an evangelist for a healthy mix of new revenue streams generated by global tariffs and strategic equity investments, alongside trade megadeals designed to lure foreign investment back into the U.S. Trump\u2019s twin goals: ending the trade imbalances that he argues have weakened America, and offsetting the ever-rising national debt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nvidia\u2019s Jensen Huang (top) and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (bottom center) joined Trump (lower left) on Air Force One en route to a Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in May.<\/p>\n
Brendan SMIALOWSKI\u2014AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Past presidents and Congresses, stuck in partisan gridlock, haven\u2019t been able to deliver on these fronts. Trump\u2019s response has been, essentially, to either steamroll or outright ignore the politicos and regulators. It\u2019s a fast-paced one-man show that thrills his fans and makes his detractors sound the alarm on the ethics and the legality of it all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI make one of those deals every day that no normal person would make,\u201d Trump says, while telling me about a possible railroad merger that he would want the government to have equity in. Musing on stakes his administration has claimed in companies like Intel and U.S. Steel, he continues, \u201cSome people actually think it\u2019s un-American, what I do. They say, \u2018You\u2019re taking their company away.\u2019\u2009\u201d Those critics aren\u2019t seeing the big picture, he implies; after all, \u201cWe have $38\u00a0trillion in debt.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Where the chips fall as a result of all this unorthodoxy\u2014including the long-term, geopolitical reshuffling of alliances and partnerships it\u2019s invoking\u2014is still very much in question. There are enough proof points to suggest that the strategy has some merit, at least under a leader as forceful as Trump. U.S. stocks and corporate profits are showing surprising resiliency, reaching new highs this year\u2014despite the inflation-driving Iran war \u201cdetour,\u201d as President Trump likes to call it. The broader public is less convinced: \u00a0Consumer confidence hit an all-time low in April, and approval of Trump\u2019s management of the economy has plummeted in polls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even the bulls, however, have to grapple with some questions about the future. As any executive knows, no sturdy business can be built on the shoulders of a single person. So what will happen when the CEO-in-chief, who\u2019s literally and figuratively remaking the White House, no longer lives there?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside Trump\u2019s dealmaking mindset, via the Lincoln Memorial<\/p>\n
When our conversation begins, the deal President Trump is most excited to talk about isn\u2019t with Iran, or even with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It involves the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which has been leaking and, he says, plaguing the otherwise beautiful National Mall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a disaster ever since it\u2019s been built, because they put granite blocks there, and every stone is going to leak,\u201d he tells me, saying the pool has become almost like a \u201cgarbage can.\u201d The plan he says he was pitched to resurrect it would have cost roughly $350\u00a0million and taken four years to complete. Instead, Trump says, he found a fix that will cost significantly less. By treating the structure like one of his resort swimming pools\u2014and using a contractor who worked on one of those pools\u2014Trump figures he can keep the granite base, drop in a sturdy, leakproof shell, and voil\u00e0: problem solved.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Now, as Trump shows me a dozen images of the project underway, he\u2019s on to which shade the shell should be\u2014American flag blue? Or something darker to hide debris?<\/p>\n
The president, of course, first established himself in real estate, and ideas about property keep popping up as we talk. A question about the AI race prompts Trump to recall visiting a vast data center with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. \u201cThe Pentagon was always the biggest building ever built,\u201d he marvels. \u201cThat\u2019s like a toy by comparison. These are the biggest buildings that anybody\u2019s ever even envisioned.\u201d (Trump now calls Zuckerberg \u201ca very good friend\u201d while quipping, \u201cWhat a difference between [my] first administration,\u201d when Trump sparred with Facebook repeatedly and later threatened to throw Zuckerberg in jail.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0Even the country\u2019s intractable debt crisis draws real estate analogies. The country\u2019s mounting red ink, the president notes, really is not so terrible if you think of it like a real estate mogul would: What\u2019s the total value of America and its natural assets, he suggests, like the Grand Canyon, or even its surrounding oceans? \u201cIf you put down the value of these things, it\u2019s like hundreds of trillions of dollars,\u201d Trump says, and by that measure, \u201cif you kept [the national debt] at $40\u00a0trillion, you\u2019re way under-levered.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As Fortune\u2019s Geoff Colvin recently wrote, a life in real estate has shaped Trump\u2019s leadership and decision-making style. Many big real estate players, including the Trump Organization, are controlled by one person or one family; negotiations happen face-to-face; deals happen fast. And even after five-and-a-half years in office, Trump still gets frustrated when government and policymaking don\u2019t work that way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tariffs, equity stakes, and the $38 trillion question<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really pisses me off,\u201d the president groans, as we delve into the Supreme Court\u2019s recent ruling that roughly half of last year\u2019s Liberation Day tariffs were unconstitutional.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the ruling per se that he\u2019s upset about, although he\u2019s certainly not happy about it. He can find another way to implement tariffs, he says, just more slowly and under different laws. Instead of the $600\u00a0billion a year he estimates the U.S. would have raked in from his tariffs (a figure that has been disputed by some economists as widely overstated), Trump figures the new sum will be chopped nearly in half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But what has specifically ticked him off is the fact that the ruling didn\u2019t come with an asterisk that would have allowed him to keep all of the tariff revenue collected prior to the ruling. \u201cCan you imagine\u2014to people who hate us, to countries that ripped us off for years, I\u2019ve got to give them back $149\u00a0billion.\u201d (Research\u2014some of it disputed by the White House\u2014indicates that most of the tariffs were paid either by U.S. companies that imported goods from abroad, or by the consumers who bought those goods; those companies are eligible to claim refunds.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0There\u2019s something deeper at stake. For decades, President Trump has backed steep taxes on imports, more recently calling tariffs the \u201cmost beautiful word in the dictionary.\u201d In his second term, he and Lutnick envisioned tariffs bringing in new, meaningful revenue\u2014even floating the idea of an \u201cExternal Revenue Service\u201d\u2014that wouldn\u2019t require hitting up Americans for more hard-earned dollars every tax season, or cutting benefits from Social Security or Medicare.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another tentpole of this revenue strategy, though one involving much smaller sums for now, is corporate equity. On multiple occasions over the past two years, the Trump administration has taken a stake in an American corporation instead of offering a bailout, a tax subsidy, or a grant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Trump\/Lutnick camp frames this as a smart way to help American businesses that find themselves in dire straits, while also allowing for potential return on investment. If the Treasury could get the kind of returns top venture capitalists and their limited partners make, it could eventually scale up to dent America\u2019s deficit. If a company goes from bankrupt to billions, couldn\u2019t it help Americans to share a piece of the pie?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bear case: Truly free markets\u2014a foundation of democracy\u2014require the government not to meddle in corporate governance. Government equity stakes could make it highly tempting for a future administration to cross that line. (What\u2019s more, most venture investments flop.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Trump, the decision to interject the government into a struggling American business seems to come down to both the opportunity and the ability of its leader to win him over personally. The textbook example of the equity strategy is Intel, in which Trump negotiated a 9.9% stake last summer worth about $10\u00a0billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The legendary chipmaker was struggling last year with problems including declining market share and a worrisome debt load. \u201c[Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan] came in to see me,\u201d Trump recalls. \u201cI liked him, I thought he was good.\u201d Trump also had leverage: substantial federal grants for chipmaking that had been earmarked, but not yet delivered, to Intel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Give the country 10% ownership for free in Intel,\u2019\u2009\u201d the president recalls. \u201cHe said, \u2018You have a deal.\u2019 I said, \u2018Shit, I should have asked for more.\u2019\u2009\u201d The grants were converted into equity in August. \u00a0<\/p>\n
As Trump recounts the story, one of his aides whisks over with a computer printout of Intel\u2019s stock performance chart and drops it into my lap. In just eight months, the government\u2019s Intel position has grown to be worth more than $50\u00a0billion, Trump says. \u201cDo I get credit for it? Does anybody even know I did that?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I ask what the government\u2019s exit strategy could be, Trump doesn\u2019t seem concerned. He thinks he could sell shares slowly over time without tanking the stock if he communicated his intentions properly to the market upfront.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Intel is a story where Trump\u2019s equity strategy and his obsession with foreign competition intersect. \u201cIntel should be the biggest company in the world right now,\u201d Trump says. \u201cIf I had been president when all these companies started sending their chips in from China, I would have put a tariff on that would have protected Intel.\u201d Referring to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), currently the world\u2019s dominant chipmaker, he adds, \u201cIntel would have all that business now, and there would be no Taiwan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Another American company experiencing the Trump dealmaker effect is Boeing. Aerospace is the industry in which the U.S. consistently runs a huge trade surplus (about $100\u00a0billion in 2024), and Boeing is by far that sector\u2019s biggest exporter. In his flurry of trade diplomacy over the past two years, Trump has frequently nudged allies to commit to buying more jets. Lutnick told the All-In podcast that Boeing executives \u201cfollow me around like puppies\u201d because Trump adds 50 to 100 planes to every big overseas deal. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump cheerfully tells me about being dubbed \u201cSalesman of the Year\u201d by Boeing CEO Ortberg, saying he\u2019s far exceeded the number of planes sold by the best salesman Boeing itself ever employed. Indeed, three days after I meet with the president, Trump will announce in Beijing that China has agreed to buy 200 Boeing planes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I ask Trump what motivates him to moonlight as a Boeing-dealer-in-chief, he replies, \u201cI want to help American companies. There\u2019s nothing in it for me other than I want companies to do well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inflation, war, and the limits of dealmaking<\/p>\n
The morning of our meeting, the U.S. Senate approved a procedural vote that cleared the way for Kevin Warsh to be confirmed as the new Federal Reserve chair. That same day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped the latest consumer price index, reporting that inflation had risen to 3.8%, up from just 3.3% the month prior.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The twin events are a reminder both of what the president wants to control, and what he can\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Warsh, of course, was vetted and nominated by Trump and shares the president\u2019s general philosophy: Interest rates in America should be lower. Doing so, Trump argues, would not only boost the economy but would greatly reduce a major cost on America\u2019s balance sheet:\u00a0the roughly $3 billion per day it spends at the current rates to service the $38 trillion debt. (The Fed doesn\u2019t control the interest rates paid on longer-term government debt\u2014lots of factors, including the health of the economy and prevailing inflation, factor into the rates that investors demand when buying bonds\u2014but a Fed chair committed to rate-cutting could presumably help at the margins.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the typical Fed playbook, of course, the need to combat inflation and the desire to cut rates are at odds. And with rising oil costs from the Iran war driving up inflation, the president seems resigned to the fact that he may have to wait for more cuts. \u201cYou can\u2019t really look at the figures until the war is over,\u201d he\u00a0concedes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inflation, interest rates, and Iran have something in common: They\u2019re problems that can\u2019t be easily solved with personal dealmaking. The complex forces driving the Iran conflict include everything from a global nuclear-arms race to the forces of the energy markets to a seven-decade history of Iranian suspicion of U.S. hegemony. But even in the midst of war, Trump frames Iran\u2019s leadership as though they\u2019re more like a stubborn business rival.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey scream all the time,\u201d he says of the Iranians. \u201cI can tell you one thing\u2014they\u2019re dying to sign [a deal]. But they make a deal, and then they send you a paper that has no relationship to the deal you made. I say, \u2018Are you people crazy?\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s not going to happen again\u2019<\/p>\n
Despite the Iran war and high oil prices, U.S. stocks are reeling off record after record. When I ask the president what he feels is behind the resilience, he replies, \u201cWe\u2019re just\u00a0strong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0One source of that strength is capital expenditures by major tech companies: Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet, for example, are each pouring over $100\u00a0billion this year largely into AI-infrastructure-related expenses that are boosting the tech sector to mind-boggling heights.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Most Americans are not as bullish about AI as the markets are. Studies show the American public, fearing job losses and more social disruption, is significantly more pessimistic than China is about the technology, and some of the president\u2019s AI advisors, like venture capitalist David Sacks, are worried the sentiment could cause America to lose the AI race.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I ask the president about that anxiety, he doesn\u2019t acknowledge the job fears but merely says that the power of AI can go both ways, and we need to be careful with it. \u201cThere\u2019s power for good,\u201d he says. \u201cWith medicine, I\u2019ve already seen it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He notes that the deal he\u2019s most proud of in AI is helping tech companies like Meta figure out how to build plants that can power their computing needs. \u201cThey need two times more electricity than we have right now,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are beating China by a lot [in AI] because I allowed these plants to be built. These companies build their own electric units now, they don\u2019t use the grid at all. Otherwise, we wouldn\u2019t be able to compete\u2009\u2026\u2009It\u2019s important that we\u00a0win.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked who could continue his dealmaking legacy after his term ends, Trump demurs. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s not going to happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Courtesy of The White House<\/p>\n
\u00a0With all this talk of winning, I have to point out the obvious: None of these America-first deals the president is so proud of seem possible without him at the center. After all, can anyone really say no to the man who has said his power is only limited by his own morality? I ask how the dealmaking flow can be sustained once his term is up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t answer that question,\u201d Trump says. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I mean, it\u2019s not going to happen again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an answer no CEO could get away with giving\u2014a business built on one person loses most of its underlying value once they leave. Apple, an American innovator turned dominant global success story, shows the value of strong succession plans: If it hadn\u2019t had executive talent like John Ternus to lean on when Tim Cook retires, or if Steve Jobs hadn\u2019t had Cook, the company would have spiraled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Which tees up my final question: Who does the president feel can best carry on his dealmaking legacy? Don Jr., Marco Rubio, JD Vance? After I pose my question, I realize the vice president has quietly slipped into the back of the room and will catch Trump\u2019s answer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWhoever gets this [job] is going to be very important,\u201d the president says. \u201cAnd if you get the wrong person: disaster.\u201d\u2002<\/p>\n
#President #Trump #interview #hour #Oval #Office #CEOinChief<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Trump can\u2019t believe Jensen Huang doesn\u2019t own his own\u00a0plane. Hours before he departs for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[12298,7729,12301,173,518,4297,12299,176,9470,4685,376,8761,3921,12300,1601,551,721],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}