Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang faces scandal over alleged ties to suspected Chinese spy

Jensen Huang is currently at the center of one of the biggest scandals of his career: he is accused of being involved with a woman suspected of spying for China.

This is a long story.

Meet Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and head of Asia-based technology company Megaspeed International. To clarify: she is not related to Jensen Huang and is not his wife — they simply share a surname. Alice has been seen in Huang’s company for at least two years. In 2024 they met in a bar in Taiwan, where senior tech executives gathered after a technology expo. After another meeting, US intelligence services began monitoring her.

The surveillance lasted about a year, and in spring 2026 the Trump administration received an intelligence memorandum. It alleges that Alice Huang was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security and is in a romantic relationship with Nvidia’s CEO.

US intelligence believes she had a specific mission: to collect information about Huang and encourage him to support easing export restrictions on AI hardware to China. Huang has been one of the main lobbyists for relaxing restrictions on selling such hardware to China. She may also have tried to obtain information about Nvidia’s strategic plans and Huang’s communications with Trump.

There is more. Megaspeed, the company Alice Huang led, grew from a little-known gaming startup into a buyer of billions of dollars of Nvidia chips. The US Commerce Department reportedly believes Megaspeed is, in some sense, a front company helping Chinese firms bypass export controls by purchasing advanced chips and shipping them to China. In 2025, Megaspeed reportedly bought nearly $2 billion worth of Nvidia chips. Nvidia says it checked Megaspeed and found no evidence that chips were redirected to China.

After the memorandum became public, Nvidia’s board announced an independent investigation. At present, it is said there is no basis to conclude that US national security or company secrets were harmed. Huang will continue to run Nvidia without interruption.

Huang sent employees a letter yesterday acknowledging that he had been unfaithful to his wife — their children also work at Nvidia — and apologized to his family and colleagues. He also said he would fully cooperate with the investigation and intended to protect US national security.

Trump publicly backed Huang and called him a worthy person; notably, he had taken Huang to China after receiving the memorandum. Elon Musk also voiced support for Nvidia’s CEO.

Despite that, Nvidia shares fell by more than 4% amid the scandal.