The Chinese government has denied that the ex-CEO's mistress, Alice Huang, was a spy, calling the allegations "purely unsubstantiated and directed at smearing China.”
Follow us on GoogleNvidia CEO Jensen Huang has resigned as president, CEO, and board member effective immediately on Thursday following reports that he had an affair with a Chinese businesswoman whom US authorities suspect of spying for Beijing.
Nvidia's board met on Wednesday to consider his ouster, a person familiar with the matter said, after reports earlier in the day that the now-former CEO also had an extramarital affair with a senior company executive who reported to him.
Huang's exit plunges the $4 trillion company into uncertainty and threatens to disrupt an AI ecosystem that he helped bankroll by pouring Nvidia's swelling cash pile back into cloud providers, suppliers, and the industry's biggest labs.
Investor sentiment toward AI stocks has already been shaky as soaring cash burn and rising debt at traditionally cash-rich tech giants fuel doubts over whether the AI boom will pay off.
The departure could also have far-reaching consequences for US chip export policy, given Huang's push to preserve access to the Chinese market and his close ties with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Sunday that Huang had "done an amazing job for our country" and that the Nvidia chief had told him he had no idea the Chinese woman he had an affair with was a spy.
Who is Alice Huang, the woman at the center of the Nvidia scandal?
Much of Alice Huang's background is unconfirmed, but some details have been made clear in recent days.
The Chinese government has denied that Alice Huang was a spy, calling the allegations "purely unsubstantiated and directed at smearing China.”
According to a Chinese private equity database site and a social media post by Shanghai Hexi Investment Management, Alice Huang began her career as a journalist at state broadcasters Hunan TV and CCTV before moving to finance, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
However, there is no public record so far of Alice Huang working at either broadcaster.
Bai Jie, a former news anchor in China with over 2 million followers on Chinese social media platform Weibo, said Monday that she had known Alice Huang when they worked together as journalists and that Bai "already knew she was formidable back then,” according to the report.
Hours later, the post disappeared, and Bai denied making the statement. Bai's account was banned shortly afterward.
Alice Huang became deputy general manager of private equity firm Shanghai Hexi at some point in the 2010s and was also listed as a legal representative for tech firm Shanghai Longteng. When reporters from the Washington Post called Shanghai Longteng's publicly listed phone numbers, they were told they had the wrong number.
Huang's Megaspeed International begins buying Nvidia chips, raising suspicions
Alice Huang joined Megaspeed International, a little-known Singapore subsidiary of a Chinese gaming company, in 2023; the company later spun off from its parent and pivoted to lending clients computing power from data centers powered by Nvidia chips, becoming one of the largest buyers of Nvidia's chips in Southeast Asia.
Megaspeed's success, with its assets growing from $33 million in 2023 to $3 billion in 2024, raised suspicions that the company was routing Nvidia's chips to China in violation of US export controls, according to The Washington Post report.
Citing US intelligence reports, The Washington Post wrote that Huang was tapped by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), Beijing’s spy agency, at some point and then began a romantic relationship with Jensen Huang, but the timing remains unclear.
According to Bloomberg, the suspected Chinese spy has returned to Beijing. However, when or why she traveled to the capital is still unknown.
Follow us on GoogleSource: The Jerusalem Post · DANYA SAPERSTEIN, REUTERS
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