Jensen Huang resigns as US intelligence ties his affair to Chinese spying

Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive of Nvidia on Thursday, after reports that US intelligence believes his longtime affair with a Chinese executive was part of a spying operation 1

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. The exit of the founder of the US AI chip titan lands days before President Donald Trump meets Xi Jinping, with the scandal already pulling in Congress and the Commerce Department 3

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The intelligence case

US intelligence agencies believe Alice Huang, a Chinese executive who ran one of several Southeast Asian companies supplying computing power to Chinese AI firms, used her affair with Huang to help China get around US restrictions on advanced AI chips 1

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. The relationship potentially gave her access to Nvidia technology details, Huang's own strategic thinking and his grasp of AI policy debates in Washington, though what she actually obtained is not confirmed 1

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Key questions about her role remain open: when she began working with Chinese intelligence, whether she cooperated willingly or under pressure, how much direction Beijing gave and how much she relayed 1

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Washington closes in

The political fallout reaches back months. Marco Rubio, who serves as both secretary of state and national security adviser, warned Trump before his May visit to China that intelligence had identified Huang's affair with a woman it suspected of spying for China 2

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. Trump nonetheless picked Huang up on Air Force One in Alaska, per the Post 2

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. Trump has said little since, telling Stephen A. Smith on Thursday that he had spoken with Huang the day before. "I always thought of him as a fine man... He's going through hell" 2

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The response on Capitol Hill crosses party lines. Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott asked Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify, and Lutnick agreed to appear voluntarily 2

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. House Republicans demanded a transcribed interview with Huang and threatened a subpoena 2

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. The House Intelligence Committee's senior members asked Lutnick for a classified briefing 2

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Much of that aims at Commerce, which declined to blacklist companies suspected of smuggling Nvidia's advanced chips to China 2

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. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said "Commerce has the pen" on export restrictions 2

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. Per a former administration official, he confronted Lutnick last week over why he had not acted despite Trump's directions on three occasions 2

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Representative Stephen Lynch, a Democrat, is also questioning Nvidia's $25 million commitment to Trump's White House ballroom: "Was there some type of quid pro quo there?" 2

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. Nvidia had already hired Bruce Andrews, a former Obama-era Commerce official, in June to help manage the crisis 2

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The scandal lands on ground Democrats just won on. Per broadcast networks' exit polls, 56% of voters called AI and data centers a crucial or major voting factor 2

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. Corruption was a crucial or major factor for 90% of voters, and both issues favored Democrats 2

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. Democrats won their largest congressional majority since 1990, per the same exit polls 2

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. Nvidia is, in the view of House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast, perhaps the most important American tech company in the country today. He said any involvement with a Chinese spy across military tech and AI is a very big concern 2

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. Even Steve Bannon is alarmed, warning on his show: "This is going to end in tears unless we get some very smart people to start saying, 'Hey, what is in the country's interest?'" 2

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The summit goes on

None of it is planned to touch next week's meeting. Trump and Xi meet around the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19 3

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. They are set to work out details there of an urgent-communication channel on AI incidents the two agreed to in September 3

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. A senior US official said the Nvidia matter should not bear on the trip, and Huang is not in the delegation 2

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Analysts expect no binding AI standards agreement at the summit and doubt the scandal will dominate the agenda 3

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. Dylan Loh of Nanyang Technological University said the leaders cooperate where they can and must 3

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. The safety agenda has its own material either way. US security firms have reported that Chinese models could be misused to reveal bioweapon recipes, though Tencent denied deliberate targeting by agents linked to it 3

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What nobody knows yet

Plenty about the case itself remains unresolved. US intelligence is still assessing Alice Huang's exact role, and her defenders can question how far it went 1

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. Representative Gregory Meeks put it as: "We've seen the tip of the iceberg. We need to know whether or not the Chinese government got any additional information, what information it was, how much, and then who knew what when" 2

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. None of the requested testimony or briefings has happened yet 2

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