Jim Cramer says Trump is trying to control Big Tech companies

Jim Cramer said Friday that President Donald Trump is going beyond politics and now acting like the one actually running America’s biggest tech companies.

Speaking on his show Mad Money, Jim pointed out that Trump’s trade orders are damaging both Nvidia and Apple, and he warned that investors are underestimating just how much the White House is involved in corporate decision-making.

Jim told viewers, “We have to make our peace with it and, yes, add it to the risk factors of owning stocks here. It puts a premium on companies that Trump and his people play no role in.” He said fewer and fewer companies are being left alone. “The list of companies that are exempt from presidential meddling grows shorter by the day.”

Trump hits Nvidia with China chip crackdown

The White House recently restricted artificial intelligence chip exports to China, citing national security concerns. That decision wiped out a major piece of Nvidia’s business, cutting its China market share from 95% to 50%, according to the company’s CEO Jensen Huang. He called the move a “failure” and said it’s damaging US interests more than Chinese ones.

Huang added that the rules are pushing China to make its own chips faster, which could end up backfiring on US companies in the long run. Jim supported that warning and said it would actually be safer to let China buy from Nvidia instead of helping it become independent in advanced chip production.

The damage isn’t just theoretical. Nvidia’s future growth in China has already taken a direct hit. These AI chips are not just side products — they’re core to Nvidia’s long-term plans. Trump’s orders are now directly reshaping what US tech can and can’t sell, and to who.

Apple targeted after India move fails to dodge tariffs

Apple, meanwhile, tried to get ahead of the game. The company began moving production from China to India to avoid getting caught in the middle of the US-China trade battle. That strategy didn’t work. Trump announced on Friday that iPhones made outside the US will face 25% tariffs anyway.

Jim criticized that move, saying it could make iPhones too expensive for regular American buyers. He also reminded the public that Apple has already done a lot to create jobs in the US, but that didn’t stop the penalties. “American-made iPhones will be too expensive for consumers,” Jim said bluntly.

He made it clear that no amount of cooperation with the administration guarantees safety anymore. Trump is making the rules, rewriting them, and enforcing them how he wants. Companies trying to adapt are still getting punished.

Jim said there’s precedent for the government stepping into business, like when Harry Truman took control of railroads in 1964 to avoid an economic crash, or when John F. Kennedy pressured steel companies in 1962 to cut price hikes. But in both of those cases, the government had clear national interests. “The president is simply telling companies what to do and where to go, and going after them hard if they don’t,” Jim said.

He added, “No matter what, the president’s functioning as the chairman of the board, overruling company execs about business decisions. He’s not accepting their rationales. He wants it his way. In that sense, he’s inching step by step toward running what I call a command economy.”

Trump’s tweets still shake markets ahead of earnings

Jim also gave a heads-up about the week ahead on Wall Street. He said companies like Nvidia, Costco, Dell, and Salesforce are all dropping quarterly reports. Normally, that would be enough to drive market action. But this week, Jim said, that might not be the case.

“We’re headed into a fickle week,” he said, warning that Trump’s tweets could overshadow everything. He said to expect fresh posts about “our trading partners, their intransigence, their negligence, their perfidiousness.” Basically, the president’s social media could have more impact than actual earnings data.

Jim added that on Friday, markets ignored some negative Trump tweets because the ten-year Treasury yield held steady. That gave investors a reason to focus on other things. But he doesn’t think that will last long. “I hope that can continue next week,” he said, “but I’ll tell you something, I wouldn’t count on it.”

Your crypto news deserves attention - KEY Difference Wire puts you on 250+ top sites