Jensen Huang Admitted to an Affair with an Alleged Chinese Spy. Nvidia Began Investigating Its Own Founder

Two weeks after reports of a Chinese agent emerged, Nvidia’s CEO sent employees a letter admitting to infidelity. The board launched an independent investigation, while shareholders are asking what the company would do without the man who has led it for 33 years.

When Nvidia $NVDA published a statement from its board on Sunday afternoon, it was clear that the story the company had dismissed as “routine customer contact” just ten days earlier had become the biggest crisis in its history. A committee of independent board members, with the help of outside lawyers, will investigate whether founder and CEO Jensen Huang was the target of a Chinese intelligence operation. Huang himself sent employees a letter that same day admitting to an extramarital relationship.

Sunday’s letter that completely reversed the company’s position

Huang does not name the woman in the letter, but the context makes it clear who he means: Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, which buys Nvidia chips in large quantities. They share a name, but are not related.

“I was unfaithful to my wife. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

Jensen Huang, Nvidia co-founder and CEO, in a letter to employees dated November 8, 2026

Huang added that he had let down his colleagues, the board, partners, and shareholders, that he remains committed to the company, and that he wants to earn their trust again. Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo added that Huang intends to continue leading the company “without interruption.” The board also expressed its “confidence in Jensen and his leadership” and stressed that the CEO is fully cooperating with the investigation.

But as recently as October 30, the official line was completely different. Nvidia then dismissed any concerns, saying Huang meets with thousands of executives from customer companies every year and that his contacts with Alice Huang “are neither unusual nor unexpected.” Huang himself described his relationship with Megaspeed as normal in an interview with Bloomberg. Nine days later, the company is investigating itself.

Former TV reporter and $4.8 billion in chips

The whole story began with a report published on October 29. According to it, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, worked for China’s Ministry of State Security and maintained a close relationship with Nvidia’s CEO in order to pass information to Beijing. Huang’s name was said to have appeared in her intercepted communications.

Alice Huang began her career in China as a TV reporter. Megaspeed was formed in 2023 when Chinese gaming and cloud company 7Road spun off its overseas business, and Alice Huang was listed as its CEO for the first eight months or so. The company has since become one of Nvidia’s largest customers in Southeast Asia: its Malaysian sister company bought at least $4.8 billion worth of AI servers with Nvidia chips between June 2024 and February 2026. The U.S. Department of Commerce has been investigating since last year whether prohibited chips were flowing to China through Megaspeed, and Singapore police are also investigating the company.

But the most explosive detail concerns not Nvidia, but the White House. According to the report, President Donald Trump was informed of the intelligence findings about a year before they were made public, but took no action. Huang himself reportedly never received a so-called defensive briefing—a warning the U.S. government routinely provides to people in contact with suspected agents. China called the whole matter baseless speculation.

“While the board has no reason to believe that national security or NVIDIA’s trade secrets have been compromised, its investigation will review all available information.”

Statement from Nvidia’s board, November 8, 2026

Congress wants answers the day after the results

The timing could hardly be worse for Nvidia. The company will release its third-quarter results on Tuesday, November 17. A lot is at stake: in the previous quarter, Nvidia generated $96.2 billion in revenue, up 106% year over year, and it has set a target of around $108 billion in revenue for the current quarter. The company did not include any revenue from data centers in China in that forecast.

The very next day, November 18, Huang is due to appear behind closed doors before three House committees. The chairs of the Foreign Affairs, China, and Intelligence committees, Brian Mast, John Moolenaar, and Rick Crawford, sent him a letter asking him to explain both his contacts with Alice Huang and how Nvidia protects itself from foreign power espionage. He is due to respond by November 11.

The pressure is not coming only from Republicans. Senator Elizabeth Warren sent Nvidia a letter back in June questioning Huang’s claims that there is no evidence of chip smuggling to China and calling on the board to provide more rigorous oversight. Huang declined to testify before the Senate at the time. She renewed her call after the October report.

When a company’s biggest risk is its own face

For shareholders, this is a different kind of problem from a weak quarter or a supply disruption. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has led it continuously for 33 years. The company has never publicly named his successor, and Huang himself only talks about retirement with a smile. His leather jacket is synonymous with the AI boom for investors around the world. The risk of the company losing him is known in investor parlance as key-person risk, and at Nvidia it is greater than at any other company in the S&P 500 index.

“The key question investors will be asking is: Will Jensen remain Nvidia’s CEO? The investigation will be decisive, and we expect Jensen to continue in his role without interruption in the near term.”

Dan Ives, partner and analyst at Yorkville Ives, in a Sunday investor note

Ives also acknowledges that the outcome of the investigation matters, and that Huang’s potential removal would mean significantly greater risk for the stock, because he embodies Nvidia’s global strategy. He called the whole affair a “black eye” for the company’s CEO and expects several congressional investigations to follow.

The shares are entering the crisis weakened. On Thursday, November 5, Nvidia’s share price plunged 9.3% to $181.60 during a sell-off across the entire AI sector. The company lost around $450 billion in market value in a single day, its worst day since the DeepSeek shock in January 2025. On Friday, the shares rebounded 3.9%, but are still about 21% below the record closing price of $239.24 on October 6. The company’s market value is around $4.5 trillion. The market’s reaction to Sunday’s news will not be clear until trading on Monday.

The China business Huang fought for takes another hit

The second layer of the story concerns the politics that have plagued Nvidia for two years. Washington has banned sales of the most powerful AI chips to China, and Huang has been the loudest lobbyist for loosening those restrictions. He has repeatedly argued that it is better for the world to compute on American chips than to let Huawei dominate it. He was close enough to Trump that in September he sat at the table at a state dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

That argument will now sound very different in Congress. If it is confirmed that the head of a company making the most sensitive technology in American industry had a relationship with an agent of China’s intelligence service, any further approval of exports to China will be politically much harder. Dan Ives directly warns that the affair will bring increased scrutiny to chip sales to China, one of Washington’s most sensitive issues.

Nvidia is currently making money without China—and making more than ever. The question over the next two weeks is whether investors will get another record set of numbers on November 17, followed the next day by a congressional report that overshadows them.