SANTA CLARA, CA — In what legal experts are calling "the most expensive thing ever hidden behind a nativity scene," semiconductor giant Nvidia announced on Christmas Eve that it has paid $20 billion for chip startup Groq's intellectual property, patents, and entire executive team while simultaneously insisting it has "not acquired Groq as a company."

"While we are adding talented employees to our ranks and licensing Groq's IP, we are not acquiring Groq as a company," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in a statement released at 5 PM on December 24th, a time sources confirmed was "specifically chosen because everyone who might ask a follow-up question is currently arguing with their uncle about cryptocurrency."

The deal, Nvidia's largest ever, transfers to the company all of Groq's patents, all of Groq's intellectual property, CEO Jonathan Ross, President Sunny Madra, and the entire senior leadership team. What remains—CFO Simon Edwards and a cloud infrastructure business that no longer owns any technology—will "continue to operate as an independent company."

Industry analysts noted that Groq had been valued at $6.9 billion just three months ago, meaning Nvidia paid a $13.1 billion premium that sources describe as purchasing "regulatory avoidance, CFIUS circumvention, antitrust immunity, political access, and the privilege of not answering questions until January."

"The deal is structured as a non-exclusive licensing agreement, which means any company can license Groq's technology," explained Stanford Law professor Miranda Chen. "Of course, Nvidia has also hired everyone who knows how to implement it, so the license is technically available to anyone willing to reverse-engineer seven years of institutional knowledge from an empty building."

The Chamath Spread

The deal is expected to pay approximately $2 billion to Social Capital, the venture firm led by Chamath Palihapitiya, who invested $10 million in Groq in 2017 at a $25 million valuation. Palihapitiya's return of approximately 19,900% stands in contrast to returns experienced by retail investors in his publicly-traded SPAC vehicles:

In October 2025, Palihapitiya warned retail investors not to buy his newest SPAC. "These vehicles are not ideal for most retail investors," he wrote, in a statement that sources confirmed arrived "four SPACs and $213 million in personal stock dumps late."

The Czar's Blessing

The transaction was overseen by David Sacks, the White House AI & Crypto Czar who co-hosts the "All-In" podcast with Palihapitiya. When asked whether his role in the administration's AI policy created any conflict of interest given his co-host's $2 billion payday, Sacks's office released a statement noting that "ethics officials were contacted for comment but appear to have been carved out of the transaction."

Sacks had previously co-authored "America's AI Action Plan" in July 2025, a White House strategy document positioning AI as a matter of national security. Just two months later, Groq was presented at the All-In Summit as "the American AI stack in action" by HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin—despite Groq having accepted $1.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund to build AI infrastructure in Dammam.

"The asterisk in 'America First' is doing a lot of heavy lifting," noted Georgetown foreign policy analyst David Rothkopf.

The Independent Company

GroqCloud, the cloud infrastructure business that will "continue as an independent company," emerged from the transaction with the following assets:

"Independence has never been so thorough," Edwards said in a statement, before returning to what sources described as "updating his LinkedIn profile."

Employees who built Groq's LPU architecture, wrote the compiler stack, and scaled the infrastructure reported receiving "continued employment at independent GroqCloud" along with equity that HR describes as "a great conversation starter." LinkedIn reports a 4,000% increase in Groq employee profile updates on December 26th.