In the fall of 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was riding the wave of the AI boom. It also found itself at the center of an ideological war over chip exports that the $4 trillion company and its allies say played a central role in its undoing.
On one side were the China hawks within the Trump administration — and the outsiders surrounding it — who feared that Huang’s chips would help fuel China’s AI ambitions. On the other side were Huang, David Sacks, and other technologists who argued for spreading American technology around the world to ensure that U.S.-backed AI becomes the global standard.
Huang’s long-standing pro-trade views were already unpopular with many of the think tanks, academics, national security officials and U.S. government officials who make up a loose group of anti-China ideologues. But in a podcast interview with influential venture capitalists Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner, Huang went further, saying the term “China hawk” is a badge of “shame” and that those who wear it are not “patriotic.”
The affront did not go unnoticed, drawing the ire of anti-tech voices like far-right podcast host Steve Bannon and other critics who had spoken out against Huang’s lobbying against China’s strict export controls.
“Let’s just say this: China hawks are patient and have long memories,” wrote Eric Sayers, a former defense congressman and current chief executive of lobbyist Beacon Global Strategies, a firm that has worked on China policy, according to people familiar with the matter.
Sayers revived his year-old X post on Nov. 2, days before Huang admitted to having an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, following weeks of media coverage about Megaspeed, a Singapore-based AI data center company that U.S. government officials say may be smuggling Nvidia chips into China. The implication was clear: Huang’s fate was not simply the result of the Nvidia CEO’s personal failings or poor judgment. He has also made powerful enemies at the highest levels of government, which Nvidia says has made it virtually impossible for the company to push for chip exports to China, according to a person briefed on the matter.
While there is no evidence to suggest they are linked to leaks, among the most prominent China hawks who have been mentioned, these people say, are Sayers’ former colleague Ivan Kanapathy, who is senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, and Tarun Chhabra, who served as deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security at the National Security Council, and Landon Heid, an NSC staffer who nearly became deputy secretary of the trade for export administration at the Bureau of Industry and Security.
Chhabra now works for Anthropic, another vocal critic of chip sales to China, whose CEO Dario Amodei likens the practice to selling nuclear weapons to North Korea. Anthropic also accused Chinese AI companies of stealing its intellectual property in order to train open-weight AI models.
Spokespeople for Nvidia, the White House, the Commerce Department, the State Department, the NSC, Marco Rubio and Beacon Global did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It is not clear who is responsible for leaking national security documents used to discredit Huang. And whether Nvidia’s CEO was the target of a espionage plot, or whether there was any wrongdoing on his or Nvidia’s part, investigators will determine in the coming months. But the damage has already reduced the company’s market value, estimated at $4.2 trillion, by about $280 billion. Huang now faces a board investigation, shareholder lawsuits, congressional questioning and the near-certain prospect of details being leaked in dribs and drabs.
Several people familiar with their China policy agenda say the hawk group wields considerable power and influence in Washington, and that eliminating Huang on the other side of the debate will significantly ease the coming fight over export controls added to the National Defense Authorization Act.
Gn bussni
