Donald Trump blew his fuse on Thursday after the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal highlighted U.S. weaknesses in the race for AI dominance against China.
The 79-year-old president blasted the paper, owned by his 94-year-old billionaire pal, in a fresh Truth Social screed as he patted himself on the back for American advancements in artificial intelligence.
Trump had a meltdown after the Journal ran a blistering editorial mocking his new deal that allows the sale of powerful Nvidia chips to China in exchange for a cut of the revenue, as well as a story detailing how China is dominating the battle for power supremacy as it races the U.S. in AI.
“The Wall Street Journal has another ridiculous story today that China is dominating us, and the World, on the production of Electricity having to do with AI,” he wrote. “They’re WRONG, as usual!”
“AI has far more Electricity than they will ever need because, they are building the facilities that produce it, themselves,” he added. “We are leading the World in AI, BY FAR, because of a gentleman named DONALD J. TRUMP!”
The Journal reported that China now holds the world’s largest power grid, crucial for feeding electricity-hungry AI systems. OpenAI earlier warned of an “electron gap” that could put the U.S. at risk of falling behind China, while Morgan Stanley forecast that American data centers could see an energy shortfall in the next three years.
The Solar Energy Industries Association cautioned the Energy Department last month that America’s push to become the global AI leader was “stymied by onerous and unstable permitting policies and insufficient transmission capacity.”
Trump sought to allay those concerns by insisting that “every AI plant being built in the United States is building its own Electric Generating Facilities.”
“The approvals are being given carefully, but very quickly, a matter of weeks. Any excess Electricity being produced is going to our Electric Grid, which is being strengthened, and expanded, for other purposes than AI, like never before,” he said.
The Journal’s editorial board separately lambasted Trump on Thursday over his decision to allow tech giant Nvidia to sell its H200 chips, a powerful AI processor, to China in return for 25 percent of the sales.
“The Indians struck a better deal when they sold Manhattan to the Dutch. Why would the president give away one of America’s chief technological advantages to an adversary and its chief economic competitor?” the board wrote, referring to the indigenous Lenape people giving up Manhattan Island in 1626 in exchange for goods and trinkets.
The Journal pointed out that Trump’s own Justice Department recognized the military applications of Nvidia chips when it shut down a tech smuggling network linked to China.
“We sure hope Mr. Trump isn’t doing this for Nvidia’s 25 percent tax payments to Treasury. The Constitution vests taxing power in Congress, yet Mr. Trump is essentially trading national security for pennies on the dollar,” it said.
“What is Mr. Trump getting from Beijing now besides better mood music before his planned visit to China in the spring?”
The Daily Beast has reached out to News Corp for comment.
