Nvidia co-founder CEO Jensen Huang has never been as flashy or controversy-prone as AI leaders like OpenAI’s Sam Altman or SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk. Now, the 63-year-old industry kingpin has admitted that he cheated on his wife of 40 years in an affair that could have ramifications beyond Huang’s personal life and potentially impact national security.
United States officials believe that Huang’s likely romantic interest, Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, is a Chinese spy who has been feeding information back to Beijing. (Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen, is of no relation to Jensen Huang.)
Megaspeed, a Singapore-based AI infrastructure company, had reportedly purchased $4.8 billion in Nvidia chips over the last two years. The U.S. and Singapore have both previously investigated Megaspeed over suspicions that the firm was illegally sharing chips with China. The Justice Department has since taken over the federal investigation into the company, the Times has reported.
The story took a sudden new turn on Wednesday. Citing five people who worked at Nvidia, the Times reported that Huang also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care, who reports directly to him. Nvidia, Huang and Powell have not confirmed the report. Reached by a Times reporter, Huang reportedly said, “I don’t think you should be talking to me directly,” before hanging up.
Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia’s board is preparing to oust Huang, and Nvidia’s shares fell in after-hours trading.
The U.S. and China are embroiled in a fierce technological arms race to build the most advanced AI infrastructure, which could shape each country’s economic future, military prowess, and capacity for innovation. Nvidia is valuable in this competition as one of the world’s largest makers of AI chips, which are essential for accelerating AI development. But as an American company, Nvidia faces government restrictions on the sale of its most powerful chips to Chinese entities.
As the controversy unfolds, we are organizing the most relevant events into a reverse-chronological timeline to keep you up to date.
November 11, 2026: Nvidia’s stock drops as board reportedly preps to oust CEO Jensen Huang
November 11, 2026: Huang also had an affair with an Nvidia executive who reports to him, NYT says
The New York Times reported that Jensen Huang also had an affair with Nvidia vice president of healthcare Kimberly Powell, who reports directly to the CEO.
According to the report, Huang and Powell were captured on film “being affectionate” at a hotel during a conference earlier this year.
November 11, 2026: Congress plans to subpoena Huang to answer questions about affair
Huang has not responded to a request from three Republican congressman to appear for a closed-door briefing for questioning about his affair with an alleged Chinese spy. House China committee Chairman Moolenaar said Wednesday on Fox Business that if Huang doesn’t agree to the briefing, he’ll likely be subpoenaed.
November 9, 2026: Huang pulls out of various speaking engagements
The Nvidia CEO pulled out of upcoming speaking engagements at the ElevenLabs Summit and Anthropic CEO Forum.
November 9-10, 2026: Details emerge about the business relationships between Nvidia and the alleged spy
Alice Huang and her family reportedly built a network of companies in China and Singapore to acquire Nvidia chips, including founding a Chinese company called Shanghai Century Litong. Founded in 2023, it became an Nvidia-preferred cloud partner, giving it priority access to chips, The Information reported. The Information also reported that Shanghai Century Litong facilitated buying $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia’s chips, including banned chips.
Nvidia’s head lawyer, Tim Teter, intervened in a 2025 U.S. government probe surrounding the suspected smuggling of AI chips by Megaspeed International, Bloomberg reported. Teter contacted Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler asking questions about whether the Trump administration played a role in detaining Alice Huang.
In early 2025, Alice Huang and a business partner sought China-based investors for an Asian data center, promising they had no problem in securing GPUs, the Financial Times reported.
November 8, 2026: Trump shows support for Nvidia CEO, calls him a “fine person”
On Sunday night, President Trump weighed in on Huang’s controversy and showed support for the Nvidia CEO.
“I have not spoken to him about it. I just know he’s a fine person, but you never know what’s going on,” Trump said.
When asked if Huang should remain chief of Nvidia, Trump said, “I think so. Oh yeah, sure.”
November 8, 2026: Huang admits to affair in public message to Nvidia employees; Nvidia board of directors begins investigation
Jensen Huang wrote in a letter to Nvidia employees — which was also published as a press release — that he cheated on his wife.
“I owe my family and all of you an apology,” Huang told his company. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”
Huang did not mention Alice Huang by name in the message, but linked his infidelity to “the national security concerns raised in news reports.”
“Nvidia’s Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American,” Huang wrote.
Nvidia shares slid over 5% the following day.
November 5, 2026: Three Republican committee chairmen ask Huang for closed-door briefing
Three Republican congressmen — Chairman John Moolenaar of the House Select Committee on China, Chairman Brian Mast of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Chairman Rick Crawford of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — sent a request to Huang for a closed-door joint briefing with their three committees.
“Recent reports raise significant national security concerns regarding the [People’s Republic of China]’s access to sensitive U.S. technology and information,” the chairmen wrote. “The issue of PRC infiltration and access to cutting-edge U.S. technology is core to the investigative work of our three committees this Congress. It is vital that Congress determines the extent to which U.S. national security has been placed at risk.”
October 29, 2026: Jensen Huang publicly revealed to have developed ‘close relationship’ with suspected Chinese spy
U.S. officials had been investigating Alice Huang and Megaspeed for more than a year when the New York Times broke the story in late October that the two executives also had a close relationship.
An Nvidia spokesperson denied that this relationship was something out of the ordinary.
“Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected. Meetings with customers are part of a CEO’s job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year,” Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said. He added that “if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know.”
Spring 2026: A secret memo circulates in the Trump administration about Nvidia CEO’s alleged relationship with Chinese spy
U.S. officials circulated a secret memo among policymakers that warned that Megaspeed’s Alice Huang, who had a relationship with Jensen Huang, was a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security. This memo was not public knowledge until it was later reported by the New York Times.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio supervised the drafting of the memo.
Late 2025: President Trump briefed on U.S. surveillance of Alice Huang and her relationship to Nvidia CEO but does not take action
Around the same time, per the New York Times’ report, U.S. President Donald Trump was briefed about intelligence findings that possible Chinese spy Alice Huang had formed a close relationship with Jensen Huang. Trump did not act on this information.
The Nvidia CEO, an ally of Trump, has repeatedly advocated for the U.S. government to let Nvidia expand its business in China.
October 2025: U.S. and Singapore each investigate Megaspeed over possible Chinese export violations
Megaspeed was confirmed to be under investigation by both the U.S. and Singaporean governments in October 2025. As a customer of Nvidia, Megaspeed was suspected of helping Chinese companies get around American embargoes on chip exports.
Megaspeed, a neocloud that used Nvidia chips, had been renting computing power to Chinese internet giant Alibaba and other Chinese companies, the Times reported. A Commerce Department official who had visited Megaspeed’s data center in Malaysia in 2024 had found a hoard of Nvidia equipment that was still packed in boxes and the concern was that this equipment was being directly shipped somewhere else, like China, rather than installed and sold as a cloud service.
Jensen Huang had been spotted socializing with Megaspeed executive Alice Huang as early as 2024 in Taiwan, where the Nvidia CEO was born.
These investigations into Megaspeed highlighted concerns about the degree to which Nvidia is able to track its chip exports. At the time, an Nvidia spokesperson told press that the company did not have “any reason to believe products had been diverted.”
“NVIDIA visited multiple Megaspeed sites yet again earlier this week and confirmed what we previously observed — Megaspeed is running a small commercial cloud, like many other companies throughout the world, as allowed by U.S. export control rules,” the Nvidia spokesperson said at the time.
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