Key facts
- Nvidia's board said it opened an independent investigation into whether Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort.
- The board acted after The New York Times reported US officials believed Alice Huang, former CEO of a Singapore cloud company, had a relationship with Jensen Huang.
- Those officials also believed Alice Huang was a Chinese intelligence asset, a claim Beijing strenuously denied.
- Jensen Huang told employees he had an affair, writing that he had 'fallen short' of his responsibility to be worthy of their trust.
- President Donald Trump told reporters Jensen Huang was unaware of allegations that Alice Huang might be a spy.
- Huang owned roughly 3.77% of Nvidia's outstanding shares as of June 2025, per a proxy statement, making him its largest individual shareholder.
Nvidia's board of directors announced it was starting an independent investigation into whether CEO Jensen Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, according to a report published on November 10, 2026.
The board's statement followed a New York Times report that US officials believed Alice Huang, the former CEO of a Singapore-based cloud computing company, had a relationship with Jensen Huang and was a Chinese intelligence asset. Beijing strenuously denied such allegations. Without naming Alice Huang, Jensen Huang told employees that he had an affair and asked for their forgiveness. "Leading NVIDIA is the privilege of my life," he wrote in the message. "My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility."
President Donald Trump, who the report said has grown close to Huang, later told reporters that Huang was unaware of allegations that Alice Huang might be a spy. Nvidia has not said much about succession planning, and Huang has been president, CEO and a board member since the company's creation.
Huang co-founded Nvidia with Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky in 1993. The company released the GeForce 256 in 1999, which it called the first graphics processing unit. Nvidia joined the trillion-dollar market cap group in 2023. As of June 2025, Huang owned roughly 3.77% of Nvidia's outstanding shares, according to a proxy statement, making him its largest individual shareholder. Bloomberg put his net worth at $155 billion as of November 2026.