Nvidia’s board has opened an independent investigation into whether chief executive Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort, after the billionaire admitted he had an affair with a businesswoman US officials believe spied for China.
Key Points
- Nvidia Jensen Huang investigation — the board announced on Sunday that a committee of independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, will run the probe.
- Huang told staff in an email that he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologised to his family and colleagues.
- The woman, Alice Huang, is a former executive of Singapore-based Megaspeed, which US authorities investigated as a Chinese intelligence asset.
- The board says it has no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, and Huang will stay on as CEO.
The announcement came after The New York Times reported last month that US intelligence agencies had discovered Huang had developed a close relationship with Alice Huang — no relation — a Chinese citizen and chip buyer who they determined was feeding information directly to Beijing. Her Singapore-based company, Megaspeed, buys AI chips from Nvidia and has been scrutinised over suspicions it helped Beijing gain access to advanced AI chips barred from shipment to China.
In a letter to Nvidia employees on Sunday, Huang said he had been unfaithful to his wife and took full responsibility. “The NVIDIA Board is initiating an independent investigation in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort,” the board said in its statement. “A committee of independent directors, assisted by outside independent counsel, will oversee the investigation.”
What the board is looking for
The board said that while it had “no reason to believe that either US national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, the board’s inquiry will examine all available information.” It added that it continued to have “confidence in Jensen and his leadership team”, and that Huang “fully supports the review and has committed to cooperating with it.”
The central question for the independent directors — everyone on the board except Huang himself — is what technology, if any, reached China and by what routes, including through a closer examination of Nvidia’s relationship with Megaspeed. An Nvidia spokesperson had previously told The Hill that the allegations were “thoroughly investigated and debunked last year”, and the Chinese Embassy in Washington dismissed them in late October as “groundless smears and slanders”. No one has been charged.
US intelligence officials reportedly briefed President Donald Trump about their concerns a year ago. Trump said on Sunday that he had not spoken to Huang about the allegations, but called him “a fine person”. Yale leadership expert Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who has hosted Huang at CEO summits, called the chief executive’s career salvageable but put his odds of surviving at “about a 50-50”.
What happens next
Three Republican House committee chairmen have asked Huang to appear at a closed-door briefing on 18 November, and Nvidia reports its newest earnings on 17 November. Huang, 63, will keep running the company — worth about $4.5 trillion — during the investigation, which has no announced timeline.
The episode lands at a delicate moment for the chipmaker at the centre of the AI boom and for Washington’s efforts to keep advanced chips out of Beijing’s hands. Whether the board clears Huang of knowingly aiding anyone, or finds that secrets did change hands, will shape not only one career but the politics of the US-China technology race.
For background on the earlier denials, see our report on China denying spy allegations involving the Nvidia chief executive, and on President Trump calling Nvidia’s CEO over AI safety concerns. More in our Technology section.
Sources: Reuters via Daily Maverick, “Nvidia probes whether CEO Huang was target of foreign spying as he admits affair“; Al Jazeera, “US chipmaker Nvidia investigates CEO Jensen Huang over affair“.