We recently compiled a list of the 9 AI Stocks Poised to Gain from Trump’s Middle East AI Push. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) stands against the other AI stocks.
A White House Official said Tuesday that the United States does not need to block the global spread of its AI chips and technology to control national security risks, signaling a flexible approach toward sharing advanced technology to trusted allies such as Saudi Arabia.
When President Biden was in office, he tried to curb China’s progress in artificial intelligence by limiting access to powerful chips. However, President Trump is taking a different approach—one that encompasses offering US technology to countries on the condition that they avoid Chinese alternatives.
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David Sacks, the White House’s AI and crypto czar, signaled on the administration’s new stance only days after Washington announced plans to rescind and modify a previous regulation from the Biden era that would limit global access to artificial-intelligence chips.
“The Trump administration has just announced that we will be rescinding what’s known as the Biden diffusion rule… it literally restricted the diffusion or proliferation of American technology all over the world. (Diffusion) is not a risk with a friend like Saudi Arabia at all but I think in general there was a great deal of misunderstanding about the diversion of GPUs.”
-Sacks said at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum
These comments imply how the United States is now looking to deepen tech ties with Middle Eastern partners investing heavily in AI infrastructure and aiming to position themselves as a hub of emerging technology outside the United States.
Before these comments were made, Saudi Arabia and its neighbors saw their access to US chips limited under the AI diffusion rules imposed during the Biden era. However, Trump officials deem this as “misguided”, touting that there is no risk with “a friend like Saudi Arabia.” The Biden-era controls were rescinded by the Department of Commerce on Tuesday.
“The original reason for this diffusion rule is that we have a policy of not wanting our advanced semiconductors to go to what are known as countries of concern.”
-David Sacks.
For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 2024.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
A customer service team in an office setting using the company’s Customer 360 platform to communicate with customers.
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 162
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is a cloud-based CRM company that has gained popularity after it unveiled its AI-powered platform called Agentforce. On May 13, Reuters reported that the White House has revealed how a Saudi Arabian firm DataVolt will invest $20 billion in AI data centers and energy infrastructure in the United States. Moreover, Alphabet’s Google, Oracle Corp, Salesforce Inc., Advanced Micro Devices, and Uber will invest $80 billion in trailblazing transformative technologies in both countries.
A few days prior, Bloomberg reported how Salesforce had already begun building its team in Saudi Arabia as part of a plan to invest $500 million over the next five years. This plan aims to boost the adoption of artificial intelligence in the kingdom. According to Mohammed Alkhotani, senior vice president of Salesforce Middle East, the company is planning to open a regional headquarters in Riyadh and to hire up to 40 employees by year-end.
Overall CRM ranks 5th on our list of the AI stocks poised to gain from Trump’s Middle East AI push. While we acknowledge the potential of CRM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CRM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.