Questionable decisions
What is still unclear, however, is: What information was Alice Huang actually able to extract? And to what extent could it have gained insight into confidential business strategies, technical developments or American export policy and then even used this information? To what extent did it possibly influence the view of the Nvidia boss, who repeatedly advocated supplying China with the AI chips in demand instead of imposing export restrictions on them.
Alice Huang’s connections to Megaspeed are certainly explosive. The company is already suspected of having circumvented American export restrictions and forwarded advanced AI chips to China. The magnitude is said to be enormous: According to a report by the US media “The Information”, Alice Huang is said to have facilitated the delivery of Nvidia chips worth at least $7.5 billion to Chinese companies. The extent to which the deliveries were illegal or whether Jensen Huang was personally involved in circumventing export controls is currently the subject of investigations.
The New York Times reported that Nvidia is said to have tried to influence an investigation by the US Department of Commerce against Megaspeed. Nvidia General Counsel Tim Teter contacted then Secretary of State for Commerce Jeffrey Kessler in the summer of 2025 to obtain information about the investigation. The US Department of Justice later requested a pause in the investigation. And this is where things get tricky. The question is whether the interests of one of the most valuable companies on the stock market were put above national security.
The White House knew about the allegations
This also puts Donald Trump at the center of the affair. According to research by the New York Times, the US President was informed early on about the possible secret service connections to Jensen Huang’s affair. His Secretary of State Marco Rubio is said to have been responsible for a confidential paper on the relationship between Jensen Huang and Alice Huang in the spring of 2026. Secret service information was compiled there.
Rubio is said to have personally warned Trump on board Air Force One on the way to China in May at the latest. It was therefore not the first time that the president was confronted with relevant information. But that apparently wasn’t a big issue for Trump. Even after the affair became known, he demonstratively stood behind the Nvidia boss. Huang was a “fantastic man,” said the president.
He assured him that he knew nothing about the alleged secret service activities. Trump said he believed him. At the same time, however, he confirmed that the FBI was investigating the case. Politically, the case is particularly explosive because Huang is one of Trump’s most important allies in Silicon Valley. He accompanied the president on his trip to China in May and was a guest at the White House on several occasions.
