Nvidia’s board has opened an independent investigation after chief executive Jensen Huang admitted on Sunday to a relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed. US spy agencies reportedly believe she was working for China.
The admission is the latest turn in a story that began less than two weeks ago. Since then, it has drawn in three House committees, a US intelligence memo, the government of Singapore and Nvidia’s own board, just days before the company reports its quarterly results.
Neither Jensen Huang nor Alice Huang has been charged, and the two are not related. China has rejected the accusations as unfounded, but here is how the story has unfolded so far.
October 29: the first report
The New York Times reported that US spy agencies had watched Alice Huang for about a year over her ties to China.
Officials feared she could learn about Nvidia’s plans, but they did not believe Jensen Huang knew she might be gathering information for Beijing, according to the newspaper.
On the same day, Alice Huang told Bloomberg that she no longer worked for Megaspeed. Megaspeed, a Singapore company that buys Nvidia chips, said it had hired outside lawyers to lo...