Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Steps Down After Spy Affair Allegations

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday.

The departure follows reports that Huang maintained an affair with Alice Huang, a client identified by U.S. intelligence as a Chinese spy.

The New York Times first reported the details. The publication stated that Huang also had a separate relationship with a company executive who reported directly to him.

NPR has not independently verified the Times' reporting. The Chinese government responded to the accusations by calling them smears against China.

Security officials describe the tactic as a honey trap. This method uses a romantic relationship to extract information from a foreign target.

Peter Mattis, a former CIA counter-intelligence analyst and president of the Jamestown Foundation, said the Ministry of State Security uses these operations to gain influence inside foreign decision-making circles.

Nicholas Eftimiades, a former CIA officer who now teaches at Penn State, noted that China employs a whole of society approach to intelligence gathering.

He cited the National Intelligence Law of 2017, which requires Chinese citizens to cooperate with intelligence collection efforts.

Alice Huang runs Megaspeed, a major buyer of advanced chips from Nvidia.

The Times reported that U.S. surveillance tracked her communications and revealed links to Chinese state security.

Desmond Shum, a former China insider, said Alice Huang does not fit the standard profile of a professional spy.

Shum called her a white glove, a front person for large commercial deals, which might have shielded her from direct ministry control. He noted her active social media presence, including posts from luxury travel, as evidence against professional training. A spy would not do that, Shum said from the United Kingdom. Isaac Stone Fish of Strategy Risks suggested the Ministry of State Security may have recruited her after learning about her relationship with the Nvidia chief. He said the agency likely monitors such pairings closely. In the 1960s, a French diplomat began a two-decade relationship with a Peking opera performer he believed was a woman. That case inspired the play and film M Butterfly. The FBI warned Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell about a similar relationship in the 2010s. The bureau later determined that Katrina Leung, a Los Angeles businesswoman, was a double-agent after she spied for China while maintaining affairs with two FBI agents. Eftimiades said ego and vanity remain the primary weaknesses exploited in these operations. Welcome to the male of the species, he said. Is everyone aware of this? Yes. Does everyone think it'll happen to them? No. And, you know, and it happens all the time.