Commerce authorizes up to 35,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips for G42, the Abu Dhabi AI firm chaired by the sheikh who bought 49% of World Liberty
On November 19, 2025 the Commerce Department announced it had authorized the export of advanced American semiconductors to G42 of the United Arab Emirates and Humain of Saudi Arabia, each approved to buy the equivalent of up to 35,000 Nvidia Blackwell (GB300) chips, conditioned on security and reporting requirements. G42 is the Abu Dhabi AI company chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, whose investment vehicle had bought 49% of the Trump family's World Liberty Financial ten months earlier.
What happened
The authorization is the concrete act under a framework set during Trump's May 2025 Gulf visit. Bloomberg reported on May 13, 2025 that the U.S. was weighing letting the UAE import more than a million advanced Nvidia chips, and on May 16 Trump announced in Abu Dhabi that the two countries had agreed on a path for the Emirates to buy top American AI chips, alongside a 5-gigawatt AI campus in Abu Dhabi; the widely reported figure was 500,000 chips a year starting in 2025. The UAE's ties to China had limited its access to U.S. chips under Biden, and G42 had earlier removed Chinese hardware under U.S. pressure. The first export licenses under the agreement were issued in October 2025 and, per The National, did not include G42. The November 19 statement is the first authorization naming G42. Commerce's statement says the approvals are "conditioned on both companies meeting rigorous security and reporting requirements" that its Bureau of Industry and Security will monitor. No dollar figure: a chip export authorization is permission to buy, not a payment.
Why it matters
The buyer of half the president's family crypto firm wanted one thing from Washington that money could not buy directly: restricted American AI chips. The Wall Street Journal (2026-02-01) reported that Tahnoon was pressing for access to those chips when his vehicle signed the World Liberty deal four days before the inauguration, and that within months the administration committed to sell the UAE about 500,000 a year, roughly a fifth to his G42. This row records the government act that delivered: a named authorization to G42, from an agency whose secretary the president appoints, ten months after the stake. Commerce, Nvidia and G42 all describe the deal as trade and AI policy, and the conditions attached are real. Read alongside the World Liberty stake (money-2025-01-15-002) and the OCC charter, it is the output side of the same transaction.
Sources
U.S. Department of Commerce, Statement on UAE and Saudi Chip Exports (2025-11-19), cnbc.com, bloomberg.com, thenationalnews.com, thenationalnews.com, wsj.com