Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tendered his resignation to the company’s board on Nov. 12, 2026, after acknowledging an affair that is reportedly linked to a woman US officials suspect of spying for China, according to Rappler. The Jensen Huang resignation comes amid reports of a second alleged affair.
Rappler reports that the second relationship involves a company executive who reports to Huang. Huang has not been quoted in the sources beyond his reported acknowledgment of an affair.
ABC News US reports that the woman is Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive based in Singapore. Citing The New York Times, ABC News US reports that US officials suspect she was a Chinese spy recruited to potentially influence Nvidia to make its chips more available to China. These suspicions rest on unnamed officials, and no on-record US official has confirmed them.
Beijing has refuted the spy claims and called the allegation unsubstantiated, according to ABC News US. Alice Huang’s own response is not reported in the sources.
Several congressional Democrats wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, asking what officials knew and demanding an immediate halt to advanced AI chip exports to China, according to ABC News US. No Commerce Department response to the letter has been reported. Senior US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump does not plan to confront Xi Jinping on the Nvidia issue, according to ABC News US.
Nvidia’s sales to China have fallen sharply under US export restrictions. The company once held about 95% of the Chinese market. Earlier this year, Trump greenlit the export of its H200 chips after Huang lobbied for looser limits.
The scandal comes as Trump prepares to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping next week in China. The US and China have also committed to a hotline for AI national security incidents. Congress is weighing tighter AI chip export limits, including in the Senate defense bill, and the AI talks may be affected.
Rappler’s article, written by a scholar of US-China relations, cites historical "honey trap" cases, including those involving Eric Swalwell and Christine Fang, as background. It does not establish that Huang was targeted. Nvidia has said only that it has no reason to believe company secrets have been leaked and has not commented on the resignation itself. The key facts rely mainly on Rappler and ABC News US, and the sources do not fully resolve the spy allegation.
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This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.