Nvidia Lawyer Emailed China Chip Smuggling Agents and the Trail Links to Jensen Huang Spy Affair
Federal agents hunting smuggled Nvidia chips watched their case freeze after a single email from Nvidia's own top lawyer.
Those agents were tracking billions of dollars in AI hardware that American officials feared was slipping into China.
Now CEO Jensen Huang has confessed to an affair, and the woman worked for the very company those agents were chasing.
Billions in Nvidia Hardware Poured Into Malaysia Starting in 2024
The company is Megaspeed, a Singapore outfit that started moving a mountain of advanced Nvidia equipment into Malaysia in 2024, on Joe Biden's watch, according to the New York Times.
The data centers it was putting up around Southeast Asia had Chinese clients lined up, Alibaba among them.
That part is legal.
Quietly slipping America's most tightly controlled chips across the border into China is not – and that is exactly what Commerce Department agents suspected.
Nvidia General Counsel Tim Teter Hit Send in August 2025
Nvidia first asked to sit down with one of the agents working the case, and the agents turned it down.
So general counsel Tim Teter wrote back.
Teter claimed he was puzzled by the refusal, since he understood from Commerce Undersecretary Jeff Kessler that Nvidia was cleared to talk with them.
Some inside Commerce feared that kind of back-channel contact was out of bounds and could wreck the investigation.
When the agents kicked the emails up the chain, Kessler answered hours later telling them to handle the case "by the book," and a Commerce official insists he never told them what to share with Nvidia.
It didn't matter.
Justice told Commerce to stand down and took the file for itself, and Megaspeed is now the subject of a criminal inquiry.
Beijing Allegedly Sent Alice Huang After the Nvidia CEO
The woman at the center of this mess is Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive and Chinese citizen.
An American intelligence memo that circulated last spring alleged China's Ministry of State Security recruited her to spy on Jensen Huang.
She got very close.
Huang admitted the affair in a message to employees, writing, "I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did."
According to Breitbart, the alleged mission went beyond collecting secrets – Beijing also hoped she could warm Huang up to getting Nvidia's top chips into China despite export controls.
That happens to be the same thing Huang has been lobbying the Trump administration for – looser rules on selling advanced AI chips to China.
Nvidia's board opened an independent review Sunday and declared it has "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised."
The company also says it examined the Megaspeed shipments itself in 2025 and found nothing – which is a bit like the fox signing off on the henhouse inspection.
Three House Chairmen Want Huang Behind Closed Doors on November 18
Republican Reps. Brian Mast of Florida, John Moolenaar of Michigan, and Rick Crawford of Arkansas aren't buying the shrug.
The chairmen of the Foreign Affairs, China, and Intelligence committees asked Huang to appear at a closed-door briefing on November 18, one day after Nvidia reports quarterly earnings.
They wrote that China's access to sensitive American technology is "core to the investigative work of our three committees this Congress."
Huang has until Wednesday to say whether he'll show up.
President Trump said he asked Huang point-blank whether he knew the woman was a spy, and Huang told him no – but Trump also said the FBI is "looking into it in terms of something else," without explaining what.
Smugglers Already Know the Malaysia Back Door
This isn't the first time American chips have taken the scenic route to China.
Last November, the Justice Department charged four people with moving roughly 400 Nvidia A100 chips into China through Malaysia and Thailand, bankrolled by more than $3.8 million wired from China.
The DOJ warned that Beijing wants this technology for its military, its weapons, and its surveillance state.
So the route was known, the stakes were known, and federal agents were already on Megaspeed's trail.
Then Nvidia's lawyer dropped their boss's name in an email, and the case sat frozen while it changed hands.
Nobody has said publicly whether more Nvidia hardware moved through Malaysia during that pause, or where it ended up.
Jensen Huang has a chair waiting for him on Capitol Hill on November 18, and he owes those chairmen the answers in person.
***Update***
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has now resigned.
Sources:
- Ben Smith, "Commerce Paused Its Nvidia Chip Probe. Did the Chips Make It to China?," RedState, November 10, 2026.
- Amanda Macias, "Nvidia board launches probe after Jensen Huang admits affair with woman reported to be Chinese spy," Fox Business, November 8, 2026.
- Lucas Nolan, "Nvidia Boss Jensen Huang Admits Affair with Suspected Chinese Spy, Board Launches Investigation," Breitbart News, November 9, 2026.
- UPI, "Trump: Jensen Huang had 'no idea' woman was Chinese spy," Breitbart News, November 10, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, "U.S. Citizens and Chinese Nationals Arrested for Exporting Artificial Intelligence Technology to China," November 20, 2025.
