Successful people in the market always have a halo around their heads until they jump up and pierce it themselves. Chip tycoon Jen-Hsun Huang is the latest example to be involved in the suspicion of a sexy spy.
As far as the AI industry is concerned, Huang Renxun can be called the "Tian Yi nobleman" of the CCP. What did he get in return? According to U.S. intelligence assessments, the CCP gave him a "red swallow." This "swallow" has already brought his reputation into disrepute and may even cost him more.
Two words jumped out from the public opinion: deserved it.
For those who have no political ethics, support authoritarian regimes to profit from them, and act as goodwill ambassadors, I'm sorry to say, but my sympathy is quite limited.
On Sunday (November 8), Nvidia's board of directors announced that it would form a committee of independent directors to launch an independent investigation with the assistance of external lawyers in response to reports that the company's founder and CEO Huang Jensen was the target of foreign intelligence operations. On the same day, Huang reportedly admitted to an extramarital relationship in a letter to employees and apologized to his wife, family and colleagues.
If the U.S. intelligence community's assessment holds true, then the person to whom he should apologize is far from enough, and even the apology itself is far from enough.
Why does Huang Jen-Hsun actively lobby for easing policies towards China?
The incident began with a report in the New York Times on October 29. According to the report, U.S. officials determined that Alice Huang (also known as Huang Le), a Chinese female executive of Singapore data center company Megaspeed, was an intelligence agent who passed information to Beijing. She had established close ties with Huang Renxun. The United States has been investigating the company since 2024, suspecting that it helps China bypass export restrictions on advanced chips.
On November 6, the New York Times disclosed a U.S. intelligence memo that circulated to senior White House officials earlier this year: This Chinese executive was recruited by China’s Ministry of National Security and targeted Huang Renxun. The Financial Times later reported that the memo also mentioned the two had a close relationship.
The reason why this suspicion is eye-catching is that Huang Renxun has long been the most influential lobbyist in the United States' chip policy towards China. He advocates relaxing restrictions on chip sales to China on the grounds that refusing to sell U.S. chips to China will not stop China from developing artificial intelligence and will only cede the market to Huawei.
According to his theory, most of the U.S.’s sales bans and restrictions on China are counterproductive and even help the evil; China’s import of advanced Western products is also destroying the Great Wall.
In 2025, the Trump administration first suspended H20 chip sales to China, and later issued a license after Nvidia agreed to hand over 15% of some sales revenue to China to the US government.
On the one hand, the intelligence agencies suspect that someone around him is using close relationships to collect information for Beijing, and on the other hand, he himself is lobbying hard in Washington to loosen ties with China. Did he believe his absurd theory, or did commercial motives swallow up political morality, or did the CCP's "red swallows" succeed in building a nest?
How eager is China for Nvidia chips to “destroy the Great Wall”?
How eager is China to "destroy the Great Wall" by importing advanced Western chips? Let's look at three examples.
A case announced by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2025 showed that four defendants were suspected of falsely reporting their final destination and illegally exporting high-performance GPUs such as Nvidia A100 to China. The completed export included 400 A100s.
On November 7, the New York Times reported that a Chinese company authorized by the U.S. Department of Commerce to purchase advanced Nvidia chips left only an "empty shell" at its registered address.
In May this year, Liang Wenfeng, the founder of China's AI leader DeepSeek, talked about computing power in a closed-door investor meeting that lasted about four hours. According to the transcript of the meeting circulated on the Internet, he said: "We now have about 20,000 H-equivalent cards. In the next few months, we will buy a large number of machines, basically all of which are NVIDIA." He said that as long as he can buy them, he wants to exchange all his money for NVIDIA cards. He also said that DeepSeek has cooperated with Huawei, but the computing power Huawei can provide is limited.
Trump: 'I think he's a man of integrity'
China has a strong demand for chips, has sent "Red Swallows", and Huang Renxun has another set of rhetoric. None of this means that China will be able to obtain chips unless there is a selfish and stupid president who does not put national interests first. As luck would have it, the United States happens to have such a president.
Huang Renxun is one of Trump's AI advisers and visited Beijing with Trump in May. According to the New York Times, Trump received a briefing on the Chinese female executive about a year ago but did not take action for reasons including reluctance to intervene in Nvidia's chip sales and concerns about deteriorating Sino-US trade relations.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, Special Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, and Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford jointly sent a letter inviting Huang to attend a closed-door briefing on November 18 to explain his contact with the executive and Nvidia's measures to prevent foreign spies, and asked him to confirm his attendance before November 11. "China's acquisition of these sensitive U.S. technologies is at the heart of our three committees' investigations this Congress," the letter reads.
Trump appears insensitive to "sensitive American technology." After the New York Times report was published, he told reporters in Florida on October 31: "I have great respect for Jensen Huang... He is a great, outstanding man," although he said "we will look into it very carefully." Asked whether Huang would continue to serve as his adviser, he said: "I would like to say yes. Unless we find the opposite."
On November 8, Trump said in an interview that he did not regret that he did not take action at the time, and spoke for Huang Renxun: "I think he is an upright man, and he should have a reason for doing what he did." When asked whether he would travel to Asia with Huang Renxun next week, Trump said: "I don't know, but he will definitely do it."
The "MAGA" movement led by Trump claims to be "America First." In the face of this suspected espionage case that may harm the interests of the United States, and in the face of Trump’s words and deeds, I wonder what his followers think of this slogan?
"We may be able to liberate Taiwan, but these two bullets are all we need to fight to the end!"
Jen-Hsun Huang was born in Tainan, Taiwan, and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine. NVIDIA's chips are manufactured by TSMC, Silicon Products and other companies are responsible for packaging and testing, and Hon Hai, Quanta, and Wistron assemble AI servers. He has repeatedly said that Nvidia cannot do without suppliers in Taiwan.
Huang Renxun has a large number of fans in Taiwan, and every time he visits Taiwan, he always attracts a large number of people and media attention. He also enjoys this kind of idol treatment, often cordially signing autographs and taking photos for fans, and also sharing his struggle experience through the media. In May 2024, he said at a Taipei night market, "Taiwan is one of the most important countries in the world."
On the other hand, Huang Renxun has no reason not to know that the reason why the U.S. government restricts the export of advanced chips to China is that such computing power has dual-use properties, both military and civilian, and may enhance the capabilities of the People's Liberation Army, whose naked military threat to Taiwan continues unabated.
Huang Renxun has defended this: The Chinese military is unlikely to rely on American chips because the supply may be cut off at any time.
According to his theory, no one would do any short-term theft, robbery, or trading. What if someone became dependent on him?
Huang Renxun probably has not watched Zhang Yimou's movie "Alive" which has not been released in mainland China. During the large-scale steel smelting, the cadres would take away Fugui's beloved shadow puppet box and remove the iron on it to make steel. The mayor said, "This iron can be used to make at least two bullets. Maybe the liberation of Taiwan will only require these two bullets in the end!"
In the movie, this is a satire of the Great Steel Smelting Movement. With today's chips and People's Liberation Army equipment, Taiwanese people might think this joke is a bit too "dark."
