Nvidia has commissioned the New York-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct a thorough and independent investigation into an alleged romantic involvement between its CEO, Jensen Huang, and a woman identified as a potential Chinese spy. Attorney Joon Kim will spearhead the legal review, while a parallel inquiry is being carried out by the FBI. Jensen Huang, who co-founded the tech company, has admitted to having a romantic relationship outside of his marriage.
The controversy has significantly impacted market confidence, with Nvidia seeing its stock value decline by $500bn (£375bn) since Friday, pushing the share price toward a yearly low. As the primary manufacturer of chips essential for artificial intelligence, the company currently ranks as the world’s second-most valuable firm behind Apple. Its technology remains a point of intense focus for US officials concerned with national security and the global race for AI dominance. Given it is the sole manufacturer of a computer chip used in AI tools, nvidia is widely considered one of the most important companies behind the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
The woman at the center of the allegations, Alice Huang—who is not related to the CEO and is also known as Huang Le—held an executive position at the Singaporean firm Megaspeed.
Megaspeed has previously served as an Nvidia client and faced scrutiny over suspicions that it helped divert Nvidia chips to China. Nvidia has consistently maintained that it investigated these concerns and deemed them debunked, adding that the US government had not previously identified Megaspeed as an intelligence threat.
