That's the take I would pursue if I were Apple.
A quiet threat of "We buy wafers on consumer demand curves. You’re selling them on venture capital and hype"
The reality is that TSMC has no competition capable of shipping an equivalent product. If AI fizzles out completely, the only way Apple can choose to not use TSMC is if they decide to ship an inferior product.
A world where TSMC drains all the venture capital out of all the AI startups, using NVidia as an intermediary, and then all the bubble pops and they all go under is a perfectly happy place for TSMC. In these market conditions they are asking cash upfront. The worst that can happen is that they overbuild capacity using other people's money that they don't have to pay back, leaving them in an even more dominant position in the crash that follows.
Business is a little more nuanced than this audience thinks, and it’s silly to think Apple has no leverage.
From TSMC's perspective, Apple is the one that needs financial assistance. If they wanted the wafers more than Nvidia, they'd be paying more. But they don't.
This is the "venture capital and hype" being referred to, not Nvidia themselves.
That line is purified cope.