IANAL, and am especially weak on US law, but I suspect this is only an antitrust loophole if the administration chooses not to act. Substance over form must apply? Pretty sure this wouldn't fly in European law.

Sure, but the US has a history of not acting.

If it was a normal acquisition, it would automatically trigger anti-trust investigations. Under the current administration, I think it is unlikely the acquisition would be blocked (although it probably should be...), but it would involve more bureaucracy, and would take longer.

US has fairly weak antitrust post-Bork.

But even more importantly, NVIDIA is literally paying extra to the feds right now from each GPU sold to China. So they are "in good standing".

Why we allow such blatant bribery is another question.

Acquiring a company due to a loophole strategy is worth exponentially more than what they paid for. Its a good strategy if the aim is to beat the AI bubble and survive it after the smoke clears. not bad. Better than financing numerous data centers for no use when the bubble crashes.