• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang wants Europe to be less cautious in its approach to AI innovation.
• Huang told Germany's chancellor that the country and others in Europe are overreliant on regulation.
• "I think you overthink things," he told British journalists on a trip to the UK last week.

Cast off the shackles and be bolder, or risk losing the AI race for good.

That's the pointed message Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has delivered to European leaders during his trip to the continent over the past week.

Over the last seven days, Huang has visited France, Sweden, the UK, and Germany ahead of Nvidia's GTC event in Berlin, which began Tuesday.

During that time, he's been clear that he believes the continent needs to move faster on artificial intelligence and rely less heavily on regulating the sector.

Huang made the case most directly on Monday evening in Berlin, during a public conversation with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Asked how Europe should regulate AI, Huang said safety had to be paramount, but cautioned that policymakers could not regulate their way to technological leadership.

"There's nothing to regulate if the industry doesn't thrive," Huang told Merz, arguing that Germany needed to foster a domestic AI industry while ensuring it developed safely and responsibly.

He said that policymakers should focus on regulating AI applications, similar to the way they regulate products that use the internet, rather than trying to regulate the underlying technology wholesale.

"We should be regulating the applications right away," Huang said.

Merz replied that Europe was still trying to find the balance between innovation and regulation. The German leader said he did not believe "no regulation" was the right answer, but that overly tight rules were not either.

Huang’s response: "Give Germany a chance. Give this industry a chance."

The exchange came as Huang and Merz pitched AI as a potential answer to the economic malaise that led Germany into recessions in 2023 and 2024.

Huang said the country's manufacturing sector, engineering expertise, and industrial know-how are national resources, and that AI could help its companies turn them into an advantage in the next phase of the technology race.

"The next wave of AI is physical," Huang said, referring to robotics, manufacturing, cars, and heavy industry. "Electrons will never replace atoms."

It was the same urgent message Huang had delivered in London days earlier. Speaking to reporters last week, Huang said there was a "strange general behavior" going on in the UK.

He took a swipe at what he described as Britain’s tendency to dwell on failure.

"You have smart people, you have a great culture, you have young people, and the energy is vibrant. But for some reason, if there was a million reasons to win, you find the one reason not to do it."

"I think you overthink things," he added.

The remarks underscore a familiar tension in Europe’s approach to AI. The continent has moved early to establish sweeping rules for the technology, including the EU AI Act, while the US and China have pulled ahead in developing frontier models and the infrastructure needed to train them.

Huang, whose company dominates the market for the advanced chips powering the AI boom, is hardly a neutral observer. Nvidia stands to benefit enormously if governments and companies move faster to build AI infrastructure and deploy its technology.

Regardless of his stake in Europe's AI success, Huang's message was blunt. If the continent spends too long debating how to regulate AI, it may find that the meaningful innovation is done elsewhere.

• Trump praised Elon Musk's plan to give one SpaceX share to every child in America next year.
• The pledge could be worth about $10.6 billion at SpaceX's current price.
• Musk and Trump have a rocky relationship, but appear to be back on the same page in recent months.

Elon Musk’s pledge to give every child in America a share in SpaceX has already paid one dividend: effusive praise from President Donald Trump.

"A BIG THANK YOU to our legendary friend, Elon Musk," Trump wrote Monday, calling the proposed gift an act of "incredible generosity."

He said the shares would go to children through Trump Accounts, the investment accounts created under his administration.

It was an enthusiastic response to Musk's commitment earlier in the day. "Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America," he wrote on X. "This will be the first of many."

Significantly, Trump shared his praise in a post on X, a platform he has eschewed in recent years since launching his social network, Truth Social.

Trump was barred from Twitter in 2021 after the Capitol riot, and while his account was reinstated after Musk bought and renamed the platform, the president has been an infrequent poster since then.

Musk's $10 billion donation promise

There are roughly 72 million children in the US, and SpaceX stock closed Monday at about $148 a share. At that price, one share apiece would put the gift's value at around $10.6 billion. Its eventual value will depend on SpaceX’s share price at the time the stock is transferred.

Trump has been waiting for this particular contribution. In July, he said he thought Musk would donate SpaceX stock to Trump Accounts, even as he referred to their very public falling-out as a "little dispute."

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and her husband had already pledged shares for more than 2 million children’s accounts.

Musk and Trump have a turbulent relationship. The world's richest man was one of Trump's biggest financial backers in the 2024 election, spending more than $200 million to help elect him. The pair were close enough during the first few months of Trump's return to the White House for Musk to earn the nickname "First Buddy."

He then became the public face of the administration's Department of Government Efficiency before leaving in May 2025.

After leaving DOGE, Musk was highly critical of the president's "Big, Beautiful Bill," calling it a "disgusting abomination."

Musk has recently resumed spending heavily to shape Republican politics ahead of the midterms. Since July, he has given about $276 million, including $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund; the super PAC later sent matching sums to a Texas group supporting Attorney General Ken Paxton's Senate campaign.

Lately, Musk has been seen publicly with Trump several times; the president awarded him the National Medal of Science earlier this month, and when China's leader Xi Jinping visited the US in September, he sat at the president's table at a state dinner.

Details are still unclear on Musk's SpaceX share giveaway

If confirmed, Musk would join other wealthy backers of the program. Michael and Susan Dell contributed $6.25 billion to the accounts of 25 million children, with the gifts directed first to children in lower-income ZIP codes. Musk’s donation would be larger than the Dells' barring a significant drop in SpaceX's share price.

For now, it remains a promise. Musk has not detailed who would qualify as a child under his plan, how he would get shares into every eligible account, or when the transfers would happen next year.

For Trump, the promise brings one of the country’s wealthiest business leaders behind a program he has promoted. "This is exactly what was envisioned when we created TRUMP ACCOUNTS," he wrote Monday.