Trump Has Put Nvidia, AMD, China in a Jam. How It Plays Out for Markets.

President Donald Trump (L) listens as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks at the White House on April 30, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Nothing says summer like a baseball game. Investors must feel like they’re watching several all at once.

In the week ahead, we will have the spectacle of economic data on inflation, retail sales, and consumer confidence. That comes on top of earnings from the likes of Cisco, Deere, and Coreweave. All of that will add insight into how the economy is coping with President Donald Trump’s tariffs and how corporate earnings will pan out in the quarters ahead.

But the power struggle to watch is the one between Trump, technology companies, and China. Chip makers Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the White House 15% of revenue from sales of AI chips to China, The Wall Street Journal reports. It is extraordinary and underscores how the president is squeezing Big Tech from two sides.

China, facing a deadline for trade talks tomorrow that could yet be extended, is being pressured to open up its mineral resources in exchange for the possibility of buying U.S.-made ingredients for artificial intelligence. The tech companies such as Apple are being threatened with 100% chip tariffs if they don’t agree to U.S. investments. And Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is in a particularly bad pickle —he’s visiting Trump today after the president called for his ouster last week.

Here’s the issue for investors: The AI boom is the big hitter of the stock market’s rally. The companies are coping fine for now, but tariffs and export restrictions put pressure on earnings that could become too much to bear. And other sectors are now on notice that their businesses could be targeted next.

Of course, the president is also the rule maker and umpire in this game. The only choice for companies is to keep swinging and hope they don’t fall foul of Trump.

—Brian Swint

*** Second-quarter earnings reports confirmed that Big Tech is getting even bigger, and spending even more on AI. Join Barron’s senior writer Tae Kim and Andrew Freedman, communications and software analyst at Hedgeye, today at noon when they unpack the implications for companies such as Alphabet, Meta, Nvidia, and Figma, in a conversation with Barron’s senior managing editor Lauren Rublin. Sign up here.

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Nvidia, AMD to Give U.S. 15% of China AI Chip Sales: Report

Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices have done an unusual deal with the White House—agreeing to give the Trump administration 15% of the revenue they generate from selling artificial intelligence chips to China, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

• The arrangement will apply to Nvidia’s H20 chip and AMD’s MI308, which are both designed to meet U.S. government limits on performance for chip exports to China. The Department of Commerce recently began issuing licenses for shipments of both chips, according to the Journal. The agreement could result in billions of dollars flowing to the government’s coffers.
• “We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide,” an Nvidia spokesperson said in an emailed statement. AMD and the Commerce Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comments.
• Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of fellow chip maker Intel, is expected to visit the White House Monday for a meeting with President Trump, the Journal reported. Trump said last week that Tan should resign over questions about his ties to China.

What’s Next: It remains to be seen whether Chinese authorities will endorse the use of American-made AI chips. The Chinese cybersecurity regulator recently asked Nvidia to explain “backdoor security risks” associated with its chips. Nvidia has denied its chips include any back doors.

— Adam Clark and Liz Moyer

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Inflation Data Coming This Week Amid Mixed Outlook on Recession

Investors have been getting some mixed signals about recession risks lately. The IT consulting firm Gartner noted a mood of caution at companies on spending decisions, where employees kick even small ones to senior management. But executives are mentioning “recession” a lot less these days, FactSet found.

• As earnings season moves forward, FactSet searched for mentions of “recession” in earnings-call transcripts for S&P 500 companies from June 15 to Aug. 7. Over that period, it came up on 16 earnings calls, an 87% drop from the first quarter.
• Tuesday’s consumer price index could further muddle the situation after the weak July jobs report. Wall Street expects July CPI to rise 2.8% from a year ago, one-tenth of a percentage point more than in June. Core CPI excluding food and energy is expected to rise 3%, also a tick higher.
• Retail sales data for July are expected on Friday, ahead of earnings reports from big retailers such as Walmart and Target. Economists forecast a 0.5% increase from June, which would be a cooling trend.
• The University of Michigan releases its consumer sentiment survey for August on Friday, too. Wall Street expects a reading of 62.2, up from July. Consumer expectations of the year-ahead inflation was a still-high 4.5% in July, but well below the 6.6% hit in May.

What’s Next: This week eight S&P 500 companies report results, including agricultural equipment maker Deere & Co., which has slated a roughly $500 million tariff hit this fiscal year, and fashion accessories maker Tapestry, which faces tariffs on products made in Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines.

— Liz Moyer and Dan Lam

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Tesla’s Third-Quarter Sales Seen Boosted by EV Credit Sunset

The EV buying rush is on, and Elon Musk’s Tesla stands to benefit. It recently raised estimated wait times for its most popular electric vehicle, the Model Y, in a sign that people are snapping them up, which could be a boost to third-quarter numbers. But pain could be ahead.

• It now takes four to six weeks for Model Y orders, up from a recent range of one to three weeks. Higher demand is good news for Tesla and other auto makers, but there is a catch. President Donald Trump’s tax plan eliminates the $7,500 purchase credit in the fourth quarter.
• No one knows exactly what will happen to EV pricing and demand when that happens. Musk has warned of some “rough quarters” ahead, referring to the loss of the credit. Tesla has been struggling with sales, seeing them fall 13% in the second quarter from a year ago.
• Tesla is just part of a bigger trend. Overall in the second quarter, Americans bought about 311,000 EVs, down 6% from a year earlier. The end of the credit after Sept. 30 created a surge in EV buying, with July the second-highest monthly sales ever, Cox Automotive says.
• For the third quarter, Wall Street expects Tesla will deliver 430,000 cars, according to FactSet. That’s an improvement from the second quarter’s 384,000 cars, but still down 7% from the 463,000 cars sold globally in the third quarter of 2024.

What’s Next: Investors have brushed off weakening sales, choosing to focus on Tesla’s artificial intelligence efforts. Tesla uses AI computing to train its cars to drive and to create useful humanoid robots, which it plans to start selling in significant quantities as early as 2026.

— Al Root

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Private Markets Firm iCapital Hires Bloomberg Vet Basak

As fund managers mount an aggressive effort to get their products into the hands of everyday investors, boosted by Trump administration efforts to open retirement savings accounts to alternative investments, the private markets fintech iCapital has hired a prominent journalist as chief investment strategist.

• Former longtime Bloomberg News journalist Sonali Basak will join iCapital in September, reporting to CEO Lawrence Calcano. The move underscores how financial firms want to shape conversations around investing and win over clients through formats that traditionally belonged only to the business press.
• Basak will lead and amplify iCapital’s investment outlook and content such as podcasts, articles, and conferences after 12 years at Bloomberg. Calcano told Barron’s it wanted to accelerate what it was doing from an educational standpoint.
• In recent years iCapital has become a key player in the complex, growing private markets sector. The privately held, 12-year-old start-up is backed by every major bank and asset manager on Wall Street and sells widely used technology platforms to financial advisors and firms investing in private assets.
• iCapital has emerged as a central connector between investment managers such as BlackRock, KKR, and Blackstone and wealth advisors looking for a big menu of funds to choose from. It has 1,950 employees and was valued at more than $7.5 billion last month after raising $820 million in new funding.

What’s Next: Basak told Barron’s that iCapital would be “ramping up very materially how much we are publishing and communicating with investors.” She takes on the role from Anastasia Amoroso, who left for Partners Group earlier this year.

— Rebecca Ungarino

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Hollywood’s Summer Hot Streak Scores 7th Top Debut for Warner Bros.

Hollywood extended a late-summer hot streak with two more blockbuster film debuts at the box office, including the seventh opening weekend first place finish this year for Warner Bros., whose R rated horror film Weapons scooped up $42.5 million at the domestic box office, beating out Walt Disney.

• Disney’s latest comedy, Freakier Friday, generated $29 million in first weekend domestic sales. Both Weapons and Freakier beat Disney’s Fantastic Four: First Steps, for which weekend sales dropped to $26.5 million for third place.
• It was a stronger-than-expected showing for two movie genres that have struggled in the age of streaming. But Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian said August is a month known for an eclectic selection of titles that aren’t the typical ‘play it safe’ popcorn summer movie.”
• Overall, domestic weekend box office sales reached $131 million, pushing the total for the year so far to $5.6 billion, according to Comscore, up 7.6% from the same time in 2024, though the lead has been shrinking, Comscore’s Dergarabedian said.
• Disney’s Fantastic Four has brought in more than $434 million globally since it hit theater screens three weeks ago, including $230 million in domestic sales. But its domestic sales have steadily dropped each week, falling 60% this past weekend.

What’s Next: Warner Bros. now has consecutive six movie debuts at more than $40 million in domestic sales after a slow start to the year. Its earlier hit, A Minecraft Movie, opened with $162 million in sales. Its upcoming Conjuring film, set for Sept. 5 release, could extend its streak, Dergarabedian said.

—Liz Moyer

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—Newsletter edited by Liz Moyer, Patrick O’Donnell, Rupert Steiner