Donald Trump, Elon Musk and prominent finance moguls have expressed their support for embattled Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as the head of the world’s most valuable chip company faces an internal investigation over a romantic relationship with an alleged Chinese spy.
Trump said he has spoken to Huang on Monday as the scandal reverberated across Silicon Valley and the Nvidia CEO faced an uncertain future.
“I asked him that question: ‘Did you have any idea that she was a spy?’ He said: ‘I had no idea that she was a spy,’ and I really believe him,” Trump said during a White House briefing.
Trump said that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was “looking into” the issue, but provided few details. “I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he’ll be in good shape,” Trump said.
The remarks came after Trump threw his support behind Huang over the weekend, telling reporters on Sunday: “I just know he’s a fine person, but you never know what is going on. I’m sure, I hope everything’s fine. He’s done such an incredible job.”
“I think he’s an honorable guy,” Trump added, saying he believed that Huang would and should stay on as CEO.
Huang’s defenders framed his affair as a personal lapse in judgment rather than evidence of treachery against the US, which has imposed strict limits on what chips Nvidia can sell to China.
Huang, who has been married to his wife, Lori, since ۱۹۸۵, admitted in an email to employees on Sunday that he had an affair and that he would cooperate with an internal investigation. Nvidia’s board of directors put out a statement the same day that the company was launching a probe regarding reports that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort.
The chip mogul is alleged to have had a relationship with Alice Huang, a businesswoman that US intelligence services suspect of spying for the Chinese government, according to the New York Times. Trump was reportedly briefed on the relationship last year, the Times reported, but took no action. Alice Huang and Jensen Huang are unrelated, with the latter being one of the world’s richest men and CEO of Nvidia, worth more than $۴tn, for the past ۳۳ years.
US intelligence agencies believe Alice Huang, acting on behalf of Beijing, pushed Jensen Huang to lobby Trump for relaxed export controls on Nvidia’s sales in China, which he has done multiple times publicly. Nvidia said in a statement that neither trade secrets nor US national security had been compromised.
The affair and alleged intelligence operation involving Huang could have far reaching implications for Nvidia and the tech industry, which are already enduring a period of high market volatility. Huang’s leadership of Nvidia, which is deeply financially intertwined with other leading tech companies like OpenAI, has long been viewed as crucial to the company’s success and stability.
As news of the scandal broke over the weekend, Musk and prominent investors shared their support of Huang. Musk posted “I agree” in response to prominent venture capitalist Shaun Maguire’s defense of Huang. Maguire argued the Nvidia CEO “did something incredibly dumb” but that he is “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of this generation”.
“Two mistakes don’t make a right, and I believe Jensen is irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership,” Maguire posted.
“Let’s also not nuke our AI industry because China ran a successful intel op,” Maguire added in a separate post.
Bill Ackman, the US hedge fund manager and pro-Trump billionaire, meanwhile, suggested that Huang is “human” and deserves public support over the affair.
“He is an incredible human. Even incredible humans make mistakes,” Ackman posted. “He takes full responsibility as he should. We should all support him and his family. Onward.”
Ackman followed up with another post later clarifying that he wasn’t suggesting Huang “gets a free pass” but that he was “hoping for a simple affair, not a risk to our national security”.
China has meanwhile denied allegations of an intelligence operation targeting Huang, with the Associated Press reporting that foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun rejected the allegations as “entirely baseless vilification and smearing”.
Nvidia and its chips have been an integral part of the AI boom in recent years, with hundreds of billions of dollars committed to building out projects such as datacenters and chip factories. In August, Nvidia agreed to provide a $۱۰۵bn guarantee to help OpenAI lease an Ohio datacenter.
As Nvidia has grown in prominence, Huang has also become one of the world’s richest people and most influential figures in tech. He has taken calls from Trump in the middle of an all-hands company meeting and on stage at a conference, and attended state dinners with the president and accompanied him on a trip to China. Huang has also been a powerful voice on tech policy, weighing in on issues such as export controls of chips to China and regulation of open-source AI models.
Nvidia’s stock price fell on Monday as speculation swirled around the extent of damage from the affair. Shares of Nvidia, the second-most valuable company in the world, tumbled ۴.۲% and closed at their lowest level since ۷ April as investors questioned Huang’s future.
Agencies contributed reporting
