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▶ Nvidia’s board said in a statement on the 8th (local time) that it had launched an independent investigation in response to recent reports that founder and CEO Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence agency.
▶ The board said it puts U.S. national and economic security first, but added that there was no basis to believe national security or Nvidia’s confidential information had been compromised. It said it had confidence in Huang and the company’s management.
▶ On the same day, Huang emailed employees and acknowledged that he had been unfaithful to his wife. “My actions hurt my wife and children, and there is no excuse for what I did,” he wrote, apologizing to his family and employees.
Nvidia’s board has taken action. In an official statement on the 8th (local time), it announced that it had “launched an independent investigation in response to recent reports that Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence agency.” The investigation will be overseen by a committee of independent directors, advised by outside independent counsel. Huang also said he would cooperate fully.
The board said it “puts U.S. national and economic security first, as these are among the most important considerations for Nvidia and its shareholders,” and that it would “carefully review all information available during the investigation.” However, it added that “there is no basis to believe that national security or Nvidia’s confidential information has been compromised” and that it had “confidence in Jensen and the management team.” In other words, the board will investigate, but is not abandoning its CEO.
“There is no excuse”
That same day, CEO Jensen Huang emailed employees. According to Bloomberg, he acknowledged an extramarital affair and apologized in the email. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt my wife and children, and there is no excuse for what I did,” he wrote. He added, “I apologize to my family and to all of you,” and said, “Leading Nvidia is the privilege of my life. I will work to earn your trust again.”
His remarks were markedly different from what he said ten days earlier. In a Bloomberg interview on October 29, Huang described his relationship with Alice Huang as “related to the Megaspeed business, completely normal and nothing unusual.”
He also said the U.S. government had never told him of its suspicions about Alice Huang. Nvidia said at the time that it had conducted a comprehensive review of Megaspeed’s GPU deployments and found no illegal shipments to China.
What happened over ten days
The allegations began with a report by The New York Times (NYT). The newspaper reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had confirmed Alice Huang, a former executive at Singaporean data center company Megaspeed, had engaged in espionage for the Chinese government, and that President Trump had received a briefing about it roughly a year earlier but took no action.
Megaspeed has been under investigation by U.S. authorities over allegations that it violated U.S. export controls by smuggling Nvidia chips into China. China’s Foreign Ministry rejected the allegations as “groundless slander.”
On the 7th, the Financial Times (FT) reported that a U.S. government memo prepared earlier this year said officials believed Huang and Alice Huang had been romantically involved. The NYT reported that the memo included intelligence indicating Alice Huang had been recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security to gather information about Huang. Nvidia senior director Madison Huang canceled her trip to South Korea a day before she was due to attend the company’s “AI Day” in Seoul. Nvidia gave only “unavoidable circumstances” as the reason.
Congress has also stepped in. John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on China; Brian Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; and Rick Crawford, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, sent Huang a letter requesting that he attend a closed-door briefing on the 18th.
Questions will focus on Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang and the safeguards Nvidia has in place to prevent foreign espionage. The three lawmakers wrote that “recent reports raise serious national security concerns about China’s access to advanced U.S. technology.”
Neither the board’s statement nor Huang’s email clarified which parts of the allegations were true. The board said there was no evidence of a leak of confidential information, while Huang acknowledged personal misconduct. What China’s intelligence services may actually have obtained, and what role Alice Huang played, will be addressed in the independent investigation and congressional briefing. Nvidia is the world’s largest company by market capitalization and a company at the center of U.S.-China semiconductor export controls.