Nvidia's Board Opens an Investigation Into Jensen Huang After He Admits an Affair With a Suspected Spy

The most important executive in the AI industry is now under investigation by his own board. On Sunday, Nvidia said a committee of independent directors, working with outside counsel, will look into reports that Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. The same day, Huang told employees he had been unfaithful to his wife.

The woman at the center of it is Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore data center company and Nvidia cloud partner. She is no relation to the Nvidia CEO. US officials concluded she was passing information to Beijing, and Huang acknowledged to the board that he had been intimate with her, the Associated Press reports. Techpresso covered the first reports in October, when it emerged that US intelligence had watched her for a year without warning him.

An apology, and a board that stays behind him

Huang's email to staff, published in full by CNBC, is unusually personal for a CEO memo. He apologizes to his wife and children, says there is no excuse for what he did, and asks for privacy for his family. On the security question he says only that he supports the board's review and will cooperate fully.

The board's statement is careful in the other direction. It says it has no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, but that the inquiry will examine all available information. It also says it has confidence in Huang. Nvidia told CNBC he will keep running the company without interruption.

Washington reacts in two ways

President Trump, who was briefed on the intelligence last year, defended Huang on Sunday. He called him "an honorable guy" and suggested he could still bring him on a trip to Asia next week, according to The Guardian. Huang had already traveled with Trump's delegation to China in May, and sat at the top table of the White House state dinner for Xi Jinping in September.

Republicans in Congress are less relaxed. Lawmakers have asked Huang to give a closed-door briefing on November 18 about Nvidia's protections against foreign espionage and about his relationship with her, ABC News reports. Beijing calls the allegations baseless smears. Neither Alice Huang nor Megaspeed has commented.

Bad timing for Nvidia

The stakes go beyond one man's private life. Huang is the face of US chip policy toward China, lobbying for looser export rules while Alice Huang was suspected of helping China get around them. The news also lands after a brutal week for AI stocks, in which a 3.1% drop in Nvidia shares was the biggest single drag on the S&P 500.

The board has not said how long the investigation will take or whether its findings will be made public. The congressional briefing on November 18 is the next date to watch.

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