Nvidia CEO admits affair; board probe follows amid chip scrutiny

By Amara Osei

Nvidia shares fell more than 5% on November 9, 2026, after an independent board investigation opened into CEO Jensen Huang’s admitted affair with a woman U.S. officials suspect of feeding information to China.

The 63-year-old executive told employees in a letter published as a company press release that he cheated on his wife of 40 years. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry,” Huang wrote. He did not identify Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen unrelated to him, but connected his conduct to national-security reporting. Huang promised to cooperate with the board’s investigation and said he remained committed to Nvidia and the United States. He also withdrew from speaking slots at the ElevenLabs Summit and Anthropic CEO Forum on November 9.

How large was the chip network?

Megaspeed, a Singapore-based AI infrastructure company, reportedly bought $4.8 billion of Nvidia chips over the past two years—an average of about $2.4 billion a year. Alice Huang and her family reportedly built a wider company network in China and Singapore to obtain Nvidia hardware. Shanghai Century Litong, founded in 2023, became a preferred Nvidia cloud partner with priority access to chips. The Information reported that it facilitated $7.5 billion in Nvidia purchases, including chips barred from export to China.

The two figures measure related but different activity: $4.8 billion covers reported Megaspeed purchases over two years, while $7.5 billion covers purchases facilitated across the broader network. The scale matters because Nvidia, one of the world’s largest makers of AI chips, must track its accelerators against U.S. restrictions on sales to Chinese entities. The United States and Singapore have each investigated Megaspeed over suspected illegal sharing of chips with China and violations of export law. The contest sits within a U.S.-China technological arms race over AI infrastructure, with consequences for each country’s economic future, military capacity and innovation potential.

Bloomberg reported that Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter intervened in a 2025 government probe of suspected AI-chip smuggling by Megaspeed International. Teter contacted Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler and asked whether the Trump administration had played a role in Alice Huang’s detention.

In early 2025, Alice Huang and a business partner sought China-based investors for an Asian data center, assuring them they could secure GPUs, the Financial Times reported.

Takeaway: The reported purchasing activity reached $7.5 billion and placed Nvidia’s distribution controls at the center of an unresolved smuggling inquiry.

What did Washington do?

On November 5, three Republican committee chairmen asked Huang for a closed-door joint briefing. They were John Moolenaar of the House Select Committee on China, Brian Mast of House Foreign Affairs and Rick Crawford of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. They said reports about Chinese access to sensitive U.S. technology raised questions about infiltration and the risk to national security.

President Donald Trump backed Huang publicly on November 8: “I have not spoken to him about it. I just know he’s a fine person, but you never know what’s going on,” and, when asked whether Huang should remain chief executive, added: “I think so. Oh yeah, sure.” Trump’s comments came despite a late-2025 briefing on intelligence and surveillance findings indicating that Alice Huang had formed a close relationship with the Nvidia chief; the report said he took no action.

The internal warning came earlier. In spring 2026, administration officials circulated a secret memo warning that Alice Huang was a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio supervising its drafting. The New York Times later reported the memo. U.S. officials had investigated Alice Huang and Megaspeed for more than a year before the Times disclosed on October 29 that the two executives had a close relationship.

Huang, a Trump ally, has repeatedly pressed the U.S. government to allow Nvidia to expand in China.

Takeaway: Congress has requested direct testimony, while Trump has offered public support without detailing any action after the earlier intelligence briefing.

What did the Megaspeed investigation find?

The U.S. and Singapore confirmed investigations in October 2025. Megaspeed operated as a neocloud using Nvidia processors and rented computing capacity to Alibaba and other Chinese companies. A Commerce Department official who visited its Malaysian data center in 2024 found Nvidia equipment still packed in boxes. Officials worried the hardware might ship directly to China rather than remain installed as a cloud service. Huang and Alice Huang had socialized in Taiwan as early as 2024, where the Nvidia chief was born.

Nvidia has disputed diversion allegations. At the time of the export investigation, a company spokesperson said it had no reason to believe products had been diverted. The spokesperson added that Nvidia had visited Megaspeed sites and found a small commercial cloud operating within U.S. export rules. After reports of Huang’s personal relationship, Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said the meetings were not unusual because Huang routinely met thousands of customer executives each year. Rizzo also said the government would inform Nvidia if it considered anyone a threat to American industry.

Takeaway: Investigators found packaged hardware and links to Chinese cloud customers, while Nvidia continues to describe the operation as a compliant cloud service.

For enterprise buyers, the test is whether export controls held across Megaspeed’s $4.8 billion purchases and the wider $7.5 billion network as Huang’s personal ties trigger an independent board inquiry.