Key facts
- Huang said he backs the review and pledged full cooperation, adding that he loves the country and company and is committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America's national security.
- The individual involved is Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Megaspeed executive based in Singapore who is not related to Jensen Huang.
- Jensen Huang will remain Nvidia's chief executive officer while the investigation continues.
- The New York Times reported in late October that Huang had been unfaithful with an individual U.S. intelligence believed was part of a Chinese spy plot.
Nvidia’s board opened an independent investigation into founder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang on Nov. 8, 2026, after Huang admitted in a letter to staff that he had an affair with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive based in Singapore who is not related to him.
A committee of independent directors, assisted by outside independent counsel, will oversee the review. Huang will remain Nvidia‘s chief executive officer while the investigation continues and pledged full cooperation to protect Nvidia and support America’s national security. The board said it currently has no reason to believe either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised. In his letter, Huang wrote, “I was unfaithful to my wife.”
The New York Times reported in late October that Huang had been unfaithful with an individual U.S. intelligence believed was part of a Chinese spy plot. U.S. intelligence officials believe the Chinese government recruited Alice Huang to spy on Jensen Huang and gather intelligence on Nvidia’s advanced chips, which are banned from sale in China.
Sources told The New York Times that Alice Huang reported directly to an intelligence agency and that it was China’s main agency. American officials suspect she was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. As of last year, U.S. officials did not believe Jensen Huang was aware of her alleged intelligence activities for China.
Alice Huang is a Megaspeed executive based in Singapore and is not related to Jensen Huang. She reportedly had relationships with executives at Gigabyte, a manufacturing firm that assembles some of Nvidia’s supercomputers, and could speak English well. Social media photos showed the two together at a bar in Taipei around Computex in June 2024 and at a restaurant outing around Computex 2025; the posts have since been scrubbed or deactivated.
Intelligence agencies began monitoring Alice Huang in late 2024 after a Commerce Department official noticed unopened boxes of Nvidia chips during a visit to a Megaspeed data center in Malaysia. Officials reportedly never gave Jensen Huang a defensive briefing, acting out of concern it could tip off Alice Huang.
The New York Times reported that President Trump was briefed on the intelligence findings roughly a year before it became public and did not act on them. The FBI has said China keeps finding creative ways to access U.S. state secrets, including duping job seekers on LinkedIn to write intelligence reports on U.S.-Chinese relations.
Jensen Huang is expected to attend a closed-door briefing on Nov. 18, 2026 involving the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the chairman of the Select Committee on China, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Senator Elizabeth Warren separately pressed Huang and Nvidia’s board on Nov. 8 and sought answers.
Before Huang’s admission, Nvidia said his meetings with Alice Huang were not unusual and consistent with other customer meetings, and that customers do not pressure Nvidia to change chip sales policy. The company had spent the past two weeks pushing back on reports about the relationship.
Speaking to reporters, Huang said Nvidia checked every GPU sent to Megaspeed and turned up no proof of illegal diversion to China. The U.S. government banned the sale of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to China, though Nvidia has lobbied to continue offering the hardware.
Nvidia is the world’s most valuable company and produces many chips that power AI data centers. Its stock fell modestly after the initial reporting, though it has largely ignored repeated China-related controversies during the year.
Dan Ives, a partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives, wrote a note to investors on Nov. 8 calling it a black eye for Huang and predicting multiple congressional investigations. He said the key question investors will ask is whether Jensen will remain CEO, and that he expects Jensen to continue in his role with no interruption in the near-term. He also warned there is risk Jensen could be removed depending on the board investigation, adding risk to the stock.
Megaspeed said it is taking the allegations seriously and hired outside counsel for an internal investigation on Nov. 8. Beijing publicly denied running Alice Huang as an asset, directing the denial at Jensen Huang, and Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Chang called the reporting unsubstantiated. Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs said its authorities never investigated Alice Huang’s alleged intelligence ties on Nov. 8.
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