The Huang Affair: What did they know and when did they know it?
It’s no longer just a rumor.
In a letter to Nvidia employees earlier tonight, Jensen Huang admitted that he had an affair with Alice Huang (no kinship relation so far as I know), who was involved in the chip business, perhaps trafficking in Nvidia chips, and is believed to have been a Chinese spy.
China undoubtedly wanted Nvidia chips and Jensen Huang seems to have supportive of this. Worse, he probably had inside info on the administrations thinking on export controls, which would have been of considerable interest to the Chinese government.. The apparent facts are absolutely wild:
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Nvidiais investigating. As I noted here a few days ago, some members of Congress had already invited Huang to discuss the matter, even before Huang’s confession.
Much will be written about all of this. One important question is: who knew what about this and when.
At least a few people had already speculated about it a year ago, based on a photo from June 2024:
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President Trump appears to have known about thisa year ago, and chose to do nothing about it. Instead,he remained close to Jensen Huang, e.g., calling Jensen while he was on stage two months ago.
It is entirely possible that Jensen Huang may have passed state secrets from Trump to Alice Huang. Certainly Jensen Huang was allowed to continue to lobby the President around sensitive U.S. policy matters around chips and China. The incoming Congress is certain to investigate. (For good measure, Trump probably just made things worse for himself[by pretending everything is totally fine](https://x.com/atrupar/status/2119573591171674217?a=-OesD4-H8DCki5Ax5BI&s=61).)
- Marco Rubio apparently oversaw the drafting of[a memo about the risks this Spring](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/08/us/politics/rubio-nvidia-ceo-chinese-spy.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)that apparently when nowhere. (Probably a lot of people knew about the memo. Congress will want to know who.)
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Nvidia should have known about it, but as recently as one week ago claimed not to:
This too will be investigated.
Also to be investigated will be the extent to which Nvidia chips have made it China illegally, and the extent to which anyone at Nvidia might have known about this.
The combination of money, power, sex, AI, international politics, and an incoming congress eager to push back against the tech titans is about to explode in ways none of us could have imagined just a couple weeks ago.
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Already Nvidia futures are falling:
Worse, Nvidia, which is at the center of the generative AI boom, has no obvious succession plan. It’s entirely possible that Jensen will ultimately have to resign.
Heaven only knows what happens then.
Conceivably it could tank the whole AI investment market, as this tweet notes. ((the opening line is presumably facetious).
Things are about to get very wild. Exactly how wild is anyone’s guess.
P.S. Bonus cartoon from a reader:
@GaryMarcus“,“username”:“DeezNutz420562”,“name”:“Deez Nutz”,“profile_image_url”:“https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/2007663012556009472/MNQB-WUh_normal.jpg”,“date”:“2026-11-09T01:00:10.000Z”,“photos”:\[{"img\_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/media/HWpRNhnbYAAzYpT.jpg","link\_url":"https://t.co/tRY8cloLfK"}\],“quoted_tweet”:{},“reply_count”:0,“retweet_count”:0,“like_count”:1,“impression_count”:13,“expanded_url”:null,“video_url”:null,“video_preview_media_key”:null,“belowTheFold”:true}“ data-component-name=“Twitter2ToDOM”>
https://bender.layer3.press/articles/c31603a1-8a2c-4ec2-8bb6-8c8921c4905c
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