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By Hugh Cameron
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The scandal surrounding chipmaker Nvidia and its CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with an alleged Chinese spy continues to gather pace, with scrutiny now extending beyond the company and its chief executive to what government officials may have known before the matter became public.
Huang acknowledged an extramarital affair in a message to his employees over the weekend, and media reports quickly linked him to Alice Huang, a Chinese national. Alice Huang, who is not related to Jensen Huang, is a former executive at Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based data center company that until mid-2025 purchased Nvidia chips. According to The New York Times, American intelligence officials have raised concerns that she was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), the country's main civilian intelligence agency, for espionage purposes.
Federal investigators are looking into the affair and Nvidia itself has opened a probe into the matter with the help of one of the country's largest law firms. The company and its chief executive are also now on the end of shareholder-led litigation alleging that they concealed the affair and, in doing so, artificially inflated Nvidia’s stock price.
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As well as questions over its CEO stepping down or into a less public role at the company he founded in 1993, uncertainty still surrounds the government’s knowledge of the affair and how it tried to act to prevent the potential national security risks from materializing.
Newsweek has contacted the White House via email for comment.
1. Was Howard Lutnick Warned?
According to multiple anonymous sources who spoke with Axios, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, received word of Jensen Huang’s extramarital relationship long before it became the subject of widespread reporting.
Lutnick—who oversees the department responsible for trade restrictions and export controls—was reportedly sent a classified memo based on surveillance of Alice Huang and a probe into Megaspeed, which The New York Times reports has bought over $4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips since June 2024.
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According to Axios, the memo was sent ahead of President Trump’s state visit to China in mid-May, around the time Reuters reported that the Commerce Department had approved the sale of certain advanced Nvidia chips to 10 Chinese companies.
Newsweek has contacted the Commerce Department for comment.
2. What Did Marco Rubio Know?
Reporting from Axios and The New York Times indicates that Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw the drafting of the highly classified memo, as well as its circulation ahead of Trump’s May 13-15 trip.
As the pair traveled to China, Rubio also informed the president that Jensen Huang was the American whom U.S. intelligence had identified as having a close relationship with Alice Huang, according to Axios. The Nvidia CEO joined the president at the last minute on his state visit to China.
When questioned by other outlets, Rubio has declined to comment regarding his knowledge of Huang’s affair or the investigations into the matter by the government and the company.
Newsweek has contacted the State Department for comment.
3. What Did Donald Trump Know, and When?
The president’s remarks on the subject have occasionally contradicted reporting on the investigations into Alice Huang and Megaspeed.
At a press conference on Monday, Trump said he learned of the allegations regarding Jensen Huang "not too long ago."
"And we'll look into it," he said. "I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else and I think that he'll be in good shape."
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However, Trump was reportedly briefed about the relationship between Alice Huang and the Nvidia CEO around a year ago, and discussed this with Rubio ahead of the China trip last May. The New York Times reported last month that Trump chose to take no action when he was first made aware, and the Nvidia CEO accompanied him on the trip despite the reservations of some officials.
Asked on Monday whether he knew about the allegations ahead of or during the trip, Trump said: "No, I didn't hear about it then. But a lot of people have heard about it. And Jensen totally denies that."
4. Why Is Trump Publicly Supporting Jensen Huang?
Jensen Huang has cultivated a strong relationship with the president since his return to the Oval Office last January, and Trump has consistently backed him as further details regarding his extramarital affair came to light.
On Monday, Trump told reporters that Jensen Huang told him he "had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy."
"And I really believe him," he added.
Trump has also advocated that Jensen Huang stay on Nvidia’s chief executive, on Sunday calling him an "honorable guy" who "probably has an excuse for it."
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Trump has extended such personal compliments to the CEO in the past—calling him the "Great Jensen Huang" and reportedly asking him directly to join the U.S. delegation on its trip to China in May after finding out that he was left out of the original group.
Trump has also invited Jensen Huang to multiple meetings at the White House sided with him when it comes to the importance of U.S. semiconductor dominance, and at times reversed or relaxed restrictions on Nvidia sales to China in ways that align with the CEO’s lobbying efforts.
5. Did Huang's Relationship Have Any Impact on U.S. Chip Exports to China?
Whether or not Jensen Huang’s affair with the alleged Chinese spy influenced Nvidia or the U.S. government’s position on chip sales to China remains the question at the heart of both the federal investigation and Nvidia’s own probe.
While the current scrutiny was sparked by The New York Times’s reporting, concerns regarding this had been raised in the past. Back in May, the short-selling firm Culper Research flagged Huang’s "uncomfortably close relationship with Megaspeed’s Alice Huang, a Chinese national."
Alice Huang’s firm purchased billions of dollars' worth of Nvidia chips, and the Culper disclosure concerns both whether some of these made their way to China in violation of U.S. export restrictions, as well as whether the relationship influenced Jensen Huang’s lobbying to loosen said restrictions.
Nvidia says it has never found evidence of its chips being smuggled to China, and that looking into Megaspeed specifically revealed the company to be "wholly owned and operated by a company based and headquartered outside China, with no China shareholders." The company has also said that its Chinese sales dropped to "zero" following the imposition of trade restrictions in early 2025. However, Culper concluded that "over 20 percent" of Nvidia’s compute revenues for the 2026 fiscal year "remained driven by China," in part thanks to Megaspeed.
Culper says Jensen Huang "seems to have quite literally walked alongside Megaspeed at every step," but does not conclude that his relationship with Alice Huang was critical in informing his support for looser U.S. export restrictions.
Jensen Huang has long argued that the U.S. should relax restrictions on sales to China, claiming this will keep the country dependent on American technology and preserve U.S. leadership in this realm. The government has at times appeared to heed these calls and relaxed restrictions on Nvidia’s sales in July 2025, December 2025, February 2026 and May 2026.
However, there is currently no evidence to suggest that the CEO’s relationship with Alice Huang was instrumental in either changing his own position or the government’s posture regarding chip exports and sales to Chinese companies.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Henry Holloway and Tony Phillips.
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