Nvidia board opens probe into CEO Jensen Huang after affair with alleged Chinese spy

The admission and the board probe

Nvidia's board of directors has opened an independent investigation into Jensen Huang, the company's founder and chief executive, after he admitted an affair with a woman whom US intelligence regards as a Chinese spy. In a message to staff, Huang acknowledged he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologised to his family and colleagues. The board, advised by outside legal counsel, said it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia's secrets had been compromised, but that it would review all available information. Huang has said he supports the inquiry and will cooperate with it, and he stays in office while the review runs. A company spokesperson said the news would not slow Nvidia and that Huang intends to keep leading it without interruption.

Who Alice Huang is

The woman at the centre of the affair is Alice Huang, who has no family relation to Jensen Huang, a 63-year-old born in Taiwan. She is a manager at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company that markets cloud services built on Nvidia hardware and is under investigation in several jurisdictions over semiconductor smuggling. Her earlier career includes work at HSBC, and she is a partner at Hexi Private Equity Partners. Reporting describes her as having tried to close deals with investors, some of them Chinese, for AI chips, relying on her ability to secure sought-after Nvidia GPUs and on a commercial relationship with Alibaba. Her whereabouts are unclear, although some sources told American media she is in China.

How the relationship surfaced

Jensen Huang and Alice Huang reportedly first met in early 2024 at Nvidia's annual event in California, when she was already a Megaspeed manager. Photographs later showed them together at a party during Computex Taipei in June 2024, and at a Chinese restaurant in Taiwan in May 2025, where she kissed him on the cheek before leaving with him that evening.

The New York Times reported in late October that US intelligence believed Alice Huang had passed information to Beijing and had built a close relationship with Nvidia's leadership. In October the name of Alice Huang became public, when it emerged that Jensen Huang had been a target of Chinese espionage, and the romantic relationship itself surfaced only in the days before the board announced its probe.

Political fallout and the White House

President Donald Trump backed Huang, saying he should remain at the head of the company, and said he had not spoken with the chief executive. Trump also described Huang as a good person who had done a great job for the United States. Reports say US intelligence alerted the president, and that a document overseen by Secretary of State Marco Rubio circulated at the highest levels before Trump's visit to China. The president reportedly chose not to act, to avoid disrupting Nvidia chip sales, complicating trade relations with China and his personal ties with Xi Jinping. Huang is an informal adviser to Trump, who has repeatedly opposed regulating AI in a way that could give China an edge. Trump and Xi are due to meet again at the APEC summit in China, expected by the end of November, and AI is likely to come up.

Markets and open questions

Nvidia shares fell about 6% in pre-market trading on the Nasdaq after the probe was announced. Shares of Asian suppliers were largely unaffected, moving with a broad rebound in US sector stocks. The drop came as AI-linked shares were already under pressure after Democrats won the midterm elections and as Americans pushed back against data centers, according to ANSA. Reporting puts Nvidia's market value at 4,310 billion dollars. The investigation has no announced end date, and the US Department of Commerce has scrutinised Megaspeed over alleged smuggling of advanced processors to China under both the Biden and Trump administrations.