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Donald Trump said the FBI was “investigating” Jensen Huang after the Nvidia chief executive admitted to having an affair with a woman the United States considers a Chinese spy.
The US president, who has developed a close relationship with Huang in recent years, told reporters at the White House on Monday that he learned about the case “not too long ago.”
“We’re going to look into it. I know the FBI is looking into it for something else,” Trump said at a news conference.
The FT reported on Friday that the US had obtained information that Nvidia’s CEO was having an affair with a Chinese woman named Alice Huang, who had been recruited as a spy by China’s Ministry of State Security.
The revelations shook the $4.3 billion semiconductor group, whose chips are integral to training and running AI models produced by labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Its shares fell 4.3 percent on Monday.
Huang has become an influential voice in Trump’s AI policy orbit and has pushed the United States to relax its rules on the export of AI chips to China.
While Trump said he was only informed of Huang’s situation recently, the FT previously reported that the president was briefed in May on a top-secret memo containing information about the affair with Alice Huang, an executive at a Singapore-based company called Megaspeed and an Nvidia customer.
Asked about the memo on Monday, Trump said: “I would certainly check with the intelligence community. It could have been mentioned. It certainly didn’t have much impact on me.”
Trump said he spoke to the Nvidia founder on Monday, and Huang “completely” denied knowing that Alice Huang was a Chinese spy. “I really believe it,” he added.
“When I heard about it, I was amazed because I consider him a high-quality person,” Trump said.
Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment on the FBI investigation.
The company previously rejected suggestions of inappropriate behavior by its chief executive in response to questions about photographs and a video on social media showing the chip company boss and an alleged spy together.
However, two days after the FT article, Huang admitted on Sunday that he was in a romantic relationship with a woman, without disclosing any details.
Nvidia’s board of directors also announced that it had opened an investigation. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers also called for investigations into the matter. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, told reporters Monday: “There are real concerns that need to be addressed regarding the Nvidia situation.”
One question lawmakers should examine is whether others at the company knew that Huang had been having an affair with the Megaspeed executive.
As recently as last week, Tim Teter, Nvidia’s general counsel, insisted within the company that claims about an affair were inaccurate, according to people familiar with the matter.
Teter said the sources of information on the U.S. government memo were people who had “a vested interest with Jensen.”
“They whitewash salacious gossip,” Teter said, according to the population.
Nvidia declined to comment on the remarks.
It remains unclear when the US intelligence community began monitoring Alice Huang or Nvidia’s CEO. The FBI has been investigating the case for some time, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Trump said he believed Huang was “in tremendous pain” but would be “in good shape.” Asked if he would discuss the issue with Xi Jinping when he meets the Chinese president next week in Shenzhen, he replied: “No, I don’t think so.”
President Elon Musk’s ally on Sunday backed Huang, saying he was irreplaceable to U.S. leadership on AI. But many technology executives close to the Nvidia boss remained silent on Monday.
“It is an extremely worrying failure that the infrastructure around it is exposed to a ‘honeypot’ like this,” said one industry executive. “This totally undermines any position he has taken on US-China policy in a way that is bad for the industry.”
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