Nvidia CEO faces Congress scrutiny over Chinese spy reports

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are ramping up calls for congressional investigations into reports of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with an alleged Chinese spy.

Nvidia’s board announced Sunday it is opening an independent investigation into Huang’s involvement with Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based tech company that the U.S. has suspected of helping China circumvent artificial intelligence chip sales prohibitions.

In a memo to Nvidia staff on Sunday, Huang disclosed he had been intimate with the woman, but the affair was not mentioned in the board’s statement. Huang fully supports the investigation and is committed to cooperating, the board said.

“While the Board has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, the Board’s inquiry will examine all available information,” the board said in its statement.

“Today’s news will not slow NVIDIA. Jensen is committed to continuing to lead NVIDIA as CEO without interruption,” the company told CNBC in a statement.

Lawmakers have been calling for an investigation into the relationship and are also questioning what the Trump administration knew about it.

“The more I learn about the insane relationship between the Trump Administration, Chinese spies, and AI billionaires, the more I’m convinced there is nothing this administration does that isn’t corrupt,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., posted on X on Saturday. “Congress will investigate and get answers.”

Coons is in line to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when his party takes control of the chamber in January.

Three House Republican committee chairs sent a letter to Huang on Wednesday asking him to sit for a closed-door briefing with lawmakers on Nov. 18, a day after the company is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings.

“Recent reports raise significant national security concerns regarding the [People’s Republic of China’s] access to sensitive U.S. technology and information,” the GOP lawmakers wrote in a letter to Huang.

Policymakers in the Trump administration received a memo last spring with intelligence identifying Alice Huang as having been recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security and revealing her relationship with Nvidia’s chief executive, the Times first reported on Friday. Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw the memo’s creation, the Times reported Sunday, citing people briefed on the matter. The State Department and the White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

When asked by the Times whether Huang would appear before lawmakers to discuss the matter, Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo declined to comment. “Our chief executive has an outstanding security team that accompanies him where needed,” Mr. Rizzo said in a statement to the Times.

Rizzo said the Nvidia CEO’s interactions with Ms. Huang were consistent with meetings he has had with any of Nvidia’s customers, the Times reported.

Separately, Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn shared a Times article published Saturday reporting that the Trump administration approved a Chinese firm, New Matrix, to assemble chips for Nvidia in Beijing. The Times found little evidence of meaningful operations at its listed address, despite Trump’s Commerce Department clearing it for national security risks.

Cornyn called the report “outrageous” in his post on X.

Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., who sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security, called on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify before Congress along with Huang.

Neither Nvidia nor the Commerce Department immediately responded to CNBC’s request for comment.