• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's Berlin keynote was interrupted by Greenpeace protesters onstage.
• Huang was making the case for Europe to build an AI economy with factories and agents.
• His finale featured a wobbly Microduck robot demo and an AI-generated Eurovision-style video.

Even for a seasoned keynote pro like Jensen Huang, there's always the risk that things don't go fully to plan.

The Nvidia CEO opened the company's Berlin conference on Wednesday to make the case that Europe should build its own AI economy — complete with AI factories, autonomous agents, and robots.

But the pitch was interrupted about 20 minutes into the keynote by protesters holding a Greenpeace banner reading, "Nvidia, clean your dirty business!"

One protester shouted: "Clean up your act! What about the technology that was found in Russian drones? Those were Nvidia chips. What are you doing about that? What are you doing about the environmental destruction?"

The protester appeared to be referring to an August statement from Ukraine's Defence Intelligence, which said it had identified an Nvidia Jetson Orin computer module in a Russian S-71 Monochrome cruise missile. The agency did not allege that Nvidia knowingly supplied the component to Russia.

Greenpeace said in a press release that it's calling on Nvidia to extend its 100% renewable energy target across its wider supply chain and to conduct audits to ensure its technology doesn't end up in military equipment. Nvidia did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comments.

As security escorted the protester away, Huang said, "Give her a chance," and that "everybody has a chance to say something." He then told the applauding crowd: "All important issues … but let me get through my keynote."

Huang, after joking that he had to "torture" the audience with "some education" before "the entertainment," then pressed on with Nvidia's pitch for Europe's AI future. He unveiled DSX POD, a modular system for AI factories, and promoted OpenShell, a platform designed to help companies run autonomous AI agents securely.

'Pay attention!'

The entertainment came near the end of the keynote, when Huang brought four small robots, known as Microducks, from French startup Pollen Robotics onstage.

The demo was charming, but not entirely obedient.

When Huang told the robots to "take a nap," one kept walking before eventually falling alongside the others. Later, only two appeared to perform a somersault when he asked them to.

Another robot lingered farther away from the group and tripped before getting back up. "Pay attention! Stay focused. Come here, come here. Stay focused," Huang told it. It eventually approached and sat down, drawing laughter from the audience.

Huang then closed the event with an AI-generated video of robots singing in a Eurovision-style contest.

The demo came a day after Huang told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that Europe could not regulate its way to technological leadership.

"There's nothing to regulate if the industry doesn't thrive," Huang told Merz.

• Rebecca Mac traveled from Manchester, UK, to Paris for a Céline Dion concert in memory of her late mother.
• She said she was caught in traffic near Galeries Lafayette as unrest spread through the city.
• Mac said hotel staff warned her against going outside, saying she was a "perfect candidate" to get mugged.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Rebecca Mac, who owns Cosmetic Finance Group, a Manchester, UK-based aesthetics finance company, and Mc Aesthetics, a cosmetic clinic group. It has been edited for length and clarity.

On Saturday, 110 demonstrations drew 550,000 people nationwide, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, including 110,000 in Paris. Organizers put the national total at 800,000.

I went to Paris to see Céline Dion in memory of my mom.

My mom had loved Céline for years. We had tickets to see her before the pandemic in Manchester before she died, but the show was canceled. She never got to see her perform.

Friday's concert was really emotional. "All Coming Back to Me Now" and "I'm Alive" made me emotional, but "My Heart Will Go On" was the one that really made me cry.

Seeing Céline felt like I was finally doing it for my mom. Little did I know, less than 24 hours later, my friend and I would be trapped in an Uber during the Paris riots.

We had no way of getting out

At about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, we left Galeries Lafayette and saw what felt like a sea of people marching toward us. We were like: "Oh my god. This is crazy." We walked away and got an Uber outside Sephora.

Every road the driver tried was closed. He told us to get out, but young men were running past the car, throwing things and banging. We said: "No, we're not getting out of the car in the middle of this."

Then people threw metal barriers into the road so cars could not pass. We were stuck there, panicking. Within seconds, police with riot shields charged in from the other side.

We thought the crowd was coming toward us and that we were trapped in the middle. The taxi stood still for a few minutes. It felt like we had no way of getting out.

The police formed a line in front of the car and cleared the barriers so traffic could move. It took about 20 minutes to get back to Le Damantin Hôtel & Spa, near the Champs-Élysées, where we were staying.

Roads were sectioned off, and police on motorbikes and police vans with sirens kept passing us as we drove away.

It was very stressful. It just felt very surreal and very long. We were just relieved to be back at the hotel and safe.

'Perfect targets to be mugged'

Later that night, hotel staff locked the doors as we were leaving for dinner.

Men in balaclavas were passing outside. A staff member told us: "You cannot go out," and said we looked like "perfect targets to be mugged."

After waiting for about an hour, we decided to take a taxi to the restaurant, which was just around the corner.

But it stopped across the road, where another group of six masked men was standing outside. It was quite intimidating, so we walked around parked cars to avoid getting too close to them.

I wanted to get home

My Sunday flight to Manchester was delayed, so I booked a 9 a.m. flight to London and then an Uber home to Manchester.

I kept thinking about my children. We had been to Paris a couple of years earlier for Disneyland with my little girl, my niece, and my nephew. I thought: Imagine if this had happened then.

I'm so grateful I saw Céline on Friday. It is a memory I will remember forever. But I'm very upset and disappointed because I do like to go to Paris quite a lot.

The whole experience made me lose my love for Paris a bit.

Additional reporting by Amanda Goh.

• Microsoft President Brad Smith warned that US immigration policies could drive AI talent overseas.
• "Let's not put that at risk," Smith said.
• The Trump administration recently suspended Microsoft and other tech firms from a green card program.

If America wants to win the AI race, sending the world's brightest engineers packing might not be a winning strategy.

That's the warning from Microsoft President Brad Smith, who said the Trump administration's immigration crackdown risks driving the next generation of AI talent away from the United States.

"I think we should all be worried about sending intentionally or inadvertently or otherwise, signals that send the most talented next wave of AI software engineers to other countries rather than the United States," Smith said in an episode of Politico's "The Decoded Podcast" that aired on Thursday.

His comments come after the Trump administration announced last week that it was suspending Microsoft, Adobe, and several other technology companies from a federal program that sponsors foreign workers for permanent residency.

Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of abusing the Permanent Labor Certification, or PERM, program by laying off American employees while hiring lower-paid foreign workers.

Smith, who Business Insider reported was recently put in charge of Microsoft's communications, pushed back against those allegations, saying the administration had presented a misleading picture of Microsoft's hiring practices.

"What was presented as Microsoft replacing 6,000 people who lost their jobs with 9,000 foreigners was frankly completely off base," he said.

Smith said most of the company's visa and green card applications concerned existing employees rather than new hires, adding that Microsoft had hired 9,200 American workers in its last fiscal year.

"That was left out of the narrative," he said.

He also rejected suggestions that Microsoft pays foreign workers less than their American counterparts, saying employees are compensated under the same system regardless of immigration status.

The American dream, on hold

The dispute comes amid growing uncertainty for skilled foreign workers in the US.

As part of our ongoing H-1B Fallout series, Business Insider previously reported that the Trump administration's shifting immigration policies have prompted some international workers to explore opportunities abroad, including in countries like the UK, Germany, and Canada.

An analysis of federal data by Business Insider found that certified H-1B applications fell 10% in the first nine months of fiscal year 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier. Applications for data scientists, however, rose 22.5%, highlighting continued demand for specialized AI talent.

On the Politico podcast, Smith cited immigrants' economic contributions as evidence of what America stands to lose.

He said that five of the six technology and science medal recipients recently honored by President Donald Trump had immigrated to the United States.

According to Smith, the companies associated with those five individuals collectively represent more than a quarter of the S&P 500's market value.

Their contributions, he said, benefit not just technology employees but ordinary Americans whose retirement savings and pension funds are invested in those businesses.

"Think about what those five individuals have done for the well being, even the wealth and standard of living, of Americans across the country," Smith said.

"Let's not put that at risk."

• Elon Musk's Tesla unveiled its new car, the Roadster, on Thursday.
• In its demonstration, the car took flight using thrusters and performed kickflips.
• Here's what smart people in tech and business have to say about it.

Tesla’s long-delayed Roadster finally made an entrance — by flying off a ramp.

At a livestreamed event Thursday night, the sports car climbed a curved ramp until it was upside down, launched into the air, flipped, and landed on its wheels, apparently aided by thrusters beneath the vehicle.

“Well, it worked,” Elon Musk said during the livestream.

Musk said Tesla and SpaceX engineers collaborated on the car, which uses high-pressure air and thrusters to lift itself off the ground. Tesla also showed a recorded demonstration in which the Roadster reached 60 mph in 0.81 seconds.

While the legality of such a device on public roads remains in question, the tech world is reacting to Musk's new creation with awe.

Here is what the leading voices in business and tech are saying about the new Roadster.

Jason Calacanis

Angel investor Jason Calacanis said in an X post that the videos of the flying car looked like "science fiction," and they're real, although they don't seem to be.

He seemed enthused by the demonstration, asking that while the car was only airborne for a couple of seconds, "what if it could keep you in the air for five minutes? Or ten? Or 30?"

Gene Munster

Gene Munster, the managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management and a longtime tech analyst, wrote his two takeaways from the Roadster event on X.

First, that "it was an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers."

And the second was that it signaled Musk's ambition to merge his two publicly traded companies, SpaceX and Tesla.

John Carmack

John Carmack, the former CTO of Meta's virtual reality division, politely rejected the flying car.

"That demo involved a non trivial chance of embarrassing failure!" he wrote on X.

He added, "I'm only going for the baseline model. At this point in my life, rocket bunny hops are out of my comfort zone."

Marques Brownlee

Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, better known as MKBHD, appeared incredulous at Tesla's claims about the new Roadster.

"They really just got on stage and said this newly designed 4000+ pound car can do flips and go half the speed of sound (380+mph) and will ship in 2028," he wrote on X. "This is a prank, right?"

Alexandr Wang

Meta's chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, had one burning question after watching Tesla's Roadster demonstration.

"wait who the hell was driving the tesla," Wang wrote on X, sharing footage of the car speeding down a dark track.

Dan Ives

Dan Ives, an analyst at Yorkville Ives and a longtime Tesla bull, said the Roadster reveal was "a statement about where the Tesla and SpaceX engineering stacks are headed together."

He wrote that the car's SpaceX-developed hardware was "a small example of the synergies between Tesla and SpaceX."

Still, he said, "The Roadster will not move the volume or revenue needle," but would "restore the brand halo at the top of the market."

David Marcus

David Marcus, the former PayPal president and Meta executive, credited Musk with bringing a sense of awe back to technology.

"The thing I’m most grateful to Elon for is bringing back an age of wonder and excitement to humanity," Marcus wrote on X, sharing Tesla's Roadster demonstration.

"That was jaw-dropping awesome! Screams and mouths wide open in the audience. Nuts."

Sam Altman

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, appeared to momentarily set aside his long-running beef with Musk to congratulate the Tesla boss.

"Wow the new roadster looks quite amazing, good job @elonmusk," Altman wrote in a Friday X post.

Altman had reserved an earlier version of the Roadster but said in October 2025 that he had canceled it after waiting 7.5 years, prompting a public exchange of barbs with Musk.

Musk was a cofounder and early financial backer of OpenAI, but he left the company's board in 2018 and has become critical of Altman's leadership.