Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's chief executive on 11 November as federal prosecutors in Manhattan examined whether companies tied to Alice Huang, whom U.S. intelligence officials suspect of spying for China, smuggled Nvidia technology there.

Nvidia's board accepted the resignation that night and announced it on 12 November. Colette Kress, chief financial officer since 2013, is interim chief executive, and Harvey Jones, a director since 1993, is the board's first chair. The company's announcement and its Form 8-K give no reason for the departure and disclose no severance.

Nvidia under Jensen Huang named Megaspeed International an official cloud partner four days after the company passed to an owner associated with Alice Huang. He was seen with her in public from December 2023 into 2025, while U.S. agencies had her under surveillance. He lobbied the Trump administration to let Nvidia sell advanced processors in China, which U.S. intelligence officials concluded was one of the aims of her recruitment. He told reporters in May 2025: "There's no evidence of any AI chip diversion."

Senators Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, and Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote to the Commerce Department in March that his assurances had been contradicted by reporting available at the time and "potentially misled U.S. officials". They asked the department to examine whether his statements had influenced its decisions to grant Nvidia export licences.

Jensen Huang is not a target of the federal inquiries, according to people familiar with them, and he has not been accused of any crime. U.S. intelligence officials initially assessed that he did not know of Alice Huang's alleged role, according to people briefed on the assessments. Some senior administration officials have since come to doubt that he could have been unaware, according to people familiar with their views. He said in October that the U.S. government had never told him of its suspicions about her and that his dealings with her were normal business.

Todd Blanche, the attorney general, said on 12 November that the Justice Department had not yet concluded whether Alice Huang was a Chinese spy and that the FBI was investigating. His statement did not address Jensen Huang. China's foreign ministry has denied that she worked for its Ministry of State Security. Megaspeed denies wrongdoing and has not been charged.

What investigators have to establish

Trump said on 9 November that the FBI was examining the relationship between Jensen Huang and Alice Huang. Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York are examining whether entities tied to her moved Super Micro Computer servers containing Nvidia processors to China, according to people familiar with the inquiries. Alice Huang is living in Beijing, where Chinese security officials are aware of her presence.

U.S. intelligence officials concluded that the Ministry of State Security had recruited her to gather information on Nvidia's chips and on Jensen Huang. The aim, they concluded, may also have been to influence him to press for sales of Nvidia's most advanced processors in China. Agencies had her under electronic surveillance for at least a year. Jensen Huang was never given the defensive briefing that U.S. agencies sometimes give people targeted by foreign intelligence services, according to people familiar with the matter.

The two were first seen together in public in December 2023, weeks after the change in Megaspeed's ownership, and photographed together in Taipei in June 2024. Alice Huang cited her access to Jensen Huang when raising money for her businesses, according to people familiar with her fundraising. A Megaspeed employee told Culper Research, a short-selling firm, that he sometimes visited the company's offices and that the two were "very close".

Neither the inquiries nor Nvidia's board has said what information passed between them, whether he discussed Nvidia's product plans or the administration's chip policy with her, or when he learned of the U.S. government's suspicions. Three House committees have asked him to account for his interactions with her.

Trump and the ballroom

Trump was briefed on the intelligence about Alice Huang in late autumn 2025 and chose not to act, according to people familiar with the decision, partly because he was wary of disrupting Nvidia's chip sales and trade with China. He restored Jensen Huang to the list of executives travelling with him to China at the last minute in May. On 9 November Trump said he had asked Jensen Huang whether he knew Alice Huang was a spy, had been told he did not, and believed him. Senator Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, said Congress needed to know "how much the Chinese spy influenced" Jensen Huang's decisions on selling chips to China.

Nvidia committed US$25 million to Trump's White House ballroom, the largest amount given, according to an internal fundraising spreadsheet. The company made the donation in October 2025 and asked for anonymity, and it was left off the list of donors the White House published. Rizzo said the support was independent of any business interests. Warren and Representative Dave Min wrote to Nvidia and other donors about the timing of their gifts and their government business, and wrote that giving to influence decisions "could run afoul of federal bribery law". Jensen Huang's personal fortune was estimated at US$120 billion in May 2025.

The chips

Megaspeed imported Nvidia hardware worth at least US$4.6 billion, containing at least 136,000 processors, between its founding in 2023 and late 2025, according to Malaysian and Singaporean trade records. More than half were from Nvidia's Blackwell range, which Trump has said he will not approve for export to China. Megaspeed rented Nvidia computing capacity in Southeast Asia to Alibaba, the Chinese technology group. Its imports exceeded the capacity of the data centres it was known to operate.

A separate network of companies tied to Alice Huang moved at least US$7.5 billion of Nvidia chips, about 240,000 processors, to Chinese buyers from 2023, according to people familiar with the shipments. At its centre was Shanghai Century Litong, which became an Nvidia preferred cloud partner in mid-2023, months after it was set up. The network included H100 and A100 processors, whose export to China without a licence has been barred since 2022.

Super Micro's co-founder Yih-Shyan Liaw was charged in March 2026. The Justice Department said he and others conspired to divert at least US$2.5 billion of servers equipped with Nvidia processors to China through companies in Southeast Asia. The department suspects Megaspeed of involvement in that scheme.

Alice Huang's companies

Alice Huang was a director of Megaspeed from March to November 2023, according to Singapore corporate records. The company was formerly 7Road International, the Singapore arm of a Chinese games company, and was sold to a British Virgin Islands company associated with her. Its assets rose from US$33 million at the end of 2023 to US$3 billion a year later, corporate filings show. Nvidia still listed Megaspeed as a partner on its website on 11 November.

Huawei Cloud, a subsidiary of Nvidia's leading Chinese rival, was the main customer of a Shenzhen data centre connected to Chinese companies in which Alice Huang held interests, corporate records show. Hexi, a company in which she held an executive role, guaranteed loans that financed the centre. Its co-owner, Zhejiang Century Huatong Group, began buying Nvidia processors in 2023. Kang Wei, her husband and Hexi's founder, became an executive of the data centre's development company in 2022 and attended the signing of its Huawei agreement. Analysts at Tesari, the private intelligence firm that traced the ownership chain, said they suspected it had been built to obscure the relationship. Whether the Shenzhen centre obtained Nvidia processors has not been established.

What Nvidia said

John Rizzo, an Nvidia spokesman, said in October 2025 that the company had found no evidence its chips had been smuggled into China or diverted at Megaspeed. Jensen Huang said in an interview on 29 October 2026 that Nvidia's dealings with Megaspeed were normal and that it had counted every processor Megaspeed deployed. Nvidia has said it halted sales and shipments to Megaspeed in June 2025, yet Malaysian trade records show Megaspeed imported at least 17,544 GB300 chips, worth about US$787 million, in November 2025.

Tim Teter, Nvidia's general counsel, telephoned Jeffrey Kessler, the Commerce Department under-secretary in charge of export enforcement, in late summer 2025 and asked about the Megaspeed investigation. In August 2025 he emailed the agents working the case to say Kessler had allowed Nvidia to contact them. The case was transferred to the Justice Department soon afterwards, and agents who had spent months on it made no further progress. Nvidia said Teter contacted the department to help stop illegal transshipment and did not know of the affair. A Commerce spokesman said the department handled the case by the book.

The Commerce Department

Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, was sent a classified memo on Jensen Huang's relationship with Alice Huang before Trump's visit to China in May 2026, according to people familiar with the memo. Jensen Huang joined the delegation, and the department cleared about 10 Chinese companies to buy Nvidia's H200 processors during the visit. It has not added Megaspeed to its trade blacklist. Senior White House officials are discussing whether Lutnick should be pushed out, two people familiar with the discussions said on 12 November, while a White House official said Trump "maintains complete confidence in the secretary".

The relationships and the board

Jensen Huang told staff on 8 November that he had been unfaithful to his wife, without naming Alice Huang. Nvidia's board said the same day that it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised and that it had confidence in him, before it had hired anyone to investigate. It retained Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz two days later. The board's announcement of his resignation does not mention Kim's inquiry or say whether it will continue.

Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice-president of healthcare, who reports directly to Jensen Huang, had an extramarital relationship with him, according to five people who worked at the company. Company security staff offered a nondisclosure agreement to a bystander who filmed the two at a San Jose hotel during Nvidia's GTC conference in March. A second Nvidia employee also had an intimate relationship with him, two people familiar with the matter said. Powell has not commented publicly, and Nvidia declined to comment.

Congress

Jensen Huang has agreed to brief three House committees in a closed session before Thanksgiving on 26 November, Brian Mast told reporters on 12 November. Mast chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee and wrote to Jensen Huang on 4 November with John Moolenaar, chairman of the House China committee, and Rick Crawford, chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Their letter asked about his interactions with Alice Huang and Nvidia's protections against foreign espionage. Mast said the session would be recorded on video and transcribed, and Moolenaar said all three chairs would use their subpoena powers if it did not take place.

Warren, who will chair the Senate Banking Committee from January, said the resignation did not absolve Jensen Huang, other executives or the company of responsibility for any risk to national security or breach of the law. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, the incoming chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, joined her in writing to Lutnick, Rubio and Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff. They instructed the administration to preserve all documents on Nvidia's exports of advanced AI chips to China.