Yao Yao Jiang: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Huang Le scandal escalates, CIA Director participates in classified congressional briefing
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently admitted to an extramarital affair with Chinese businesswoman Huang Le. Foreign media reports allege that Huang Le is suspected of gathering intelligence for the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) and engaging in lobbying efforts. The incident has sent shockwaves through the U.S. Congress, the intelligence community, and Wall Street. Republican lawmakers have demanded that Huang attend a closed-door briefing, while the Trump administration remains divided on whether to include him in an upcoming state visit.
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Hello everyone, I am Yao Yao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. Last Wednesday, I produced an episode titled "Whose side is Jensen Huang really on?" discussing the murky suspicions surrounding Jensen Huang and China regarding chip export bans. In it, we talked about a Chinese businesswoman named Huang Le and how she ended up sitting next to Jensen Huang at a bar in Taipei. At the time, Huang claimed their interactions were entirely normal. For those who haven't seen it, I suggest watching that episode first. Two days after the program aired, public opinion took a sharp turn. On Friday, The New York Times reported that Huang Le is a spy recruited by the Chinese Ministry of State Security. On Saturday, the Financial Times continued the exposé, claiming the two were in a romantic relationship. Yesterday, Jensen Huang sent a letter to the entire company stating: "I have been unfaithful to my wife." On Twitter, a post by the financial account Kobeissi Letter sharing this letter garnered over 4.7 million views and 37,000 likes in a few hours; The New York Times' breaking news alert also received over 3.3 million views. That evening, NVIDIA's stock price fell more than 3% in pre-market trading. Why would a model husband, who has spoken about his long-term marriage on stage for decades, suddenly admit to an affair with Huang Le to all his employees? What is the background of this Chinese spy by his side? Why did the U.S. government, having known about this for a long time, wait until now to expose it through unconventional means? Will Trump still take Jensen Huang with him when he goes to Shenzhen to meet Xi Jinping next week? Today, we will answer these questions. What do you think?
Let's rewind ten days. On October 29, The New York Times first reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had been conducting electronic surveillance on Huang Le for about a year to investigate chip transshipment, and discovered Jensen Huang's name in the surveillance records. Once the report came out, all parties denied it. An NVIDIA spokesperson said that Jensen Huang meets with executives from thousands of client companies every year, and his interactions with Huang Le were neither unusual nor unexpected. Huang himself told the media that these were normal business dealings, that Huang Le had already left Megaspeed, and that the U.S. government had never informed him of any espionage suspicions. On November 4, the Republican chairs of three U.S. House committees wrote a joint letter inviting Jensen Huang to Congress on November 18 for a closed-door briefing. Then came the 48 hours of sudden shifts in public opinion. On Friday, November 6, The New York Times published a second follow-up report. The previous one mentioned Huang Le passing intelligence to Beijing. This one was more direct: she was recruited directly by the Ministry of State Security with the mission to keep an eye on Jensen Huang. On Saturday, November 7, the Financial Times followed up. The claim of a romantic relationship originated from a classified memorandum written by U.S. officials this year based on intelligence. When the Financial Times asked NVIDIA for comment, NVIDIA did not respond, merely repeating the statement from ten days ago. Over the past two days, Taiwanese media have also begun to release photos and videos of the two together in Taipei. Yesterday, November 8, The New York Times broke another story: the person who drafted that classified memorandum was Secretary of State Rubio.
Yesterday afternoon, Jensen Huang's letter of apology to all NVIDIA employees was released. The letter was first obtained by the American news website Axios, and NVIDIA later posted the full text on its official website. The letter is not long, and the majority of the first half is an apology to his family. He said that his family had given him love and support all his life, and they deserved his honesty and loyalty, but he had failed them, destroyed the life they built together, and he was willing to take full responsibility and accept the criticism that followed. He said to his wife and family, I love you, and I know an apology cannot erase what I have done; I hope our family can slowly heal, and I hope that as time goes on, I can win back your trust. Next was an apology to the company. He said to colleagues of decades, the board of directors, partners, and shareholders around the world that they deserved a better him. Leading NVIDIA was the honor of his lifetime, and he had failed to live up to that responsibility. Speaking of national security, there was only a short paragraph. He said that in response to the national security concerns raised by news reports, the board of directors had launched an independent investigation, which he supported and would fully cooperate with. He said he loved this country and this company, and as an American, he felt proud and grateful. The last sentence of the letter asked everyone to respect his family's privacy. Throughout the letter, the name Huang Le did not appear. He did not say who the subject of the affair was, when they started, what they talked about when they were together, or whether he knew her identity. However, according to the New York Times, Jensen Huang first admitted to the board of directors that he had an intimate relationship with the Chinese businesswoman identified by US intelligence agencies as a Chinese spy, and the board then announced the investigation.
The board's statement must also be analyzed sentence by sentence. The board said the investigation was led by a committee of independent directors, assisted by external independent legal counsel. The next sentence: The board has no reason to believe that national security or NVIDIA's trade secrets have been compromised. The final sentence: The board has confidence in Jensen Huang and his management team. The investigation had just been announced, but the conclusion had already been written beforehand. An NVIDIA spokesperson added: Today's news will not slow NVIDIA down, and Jensen Huang will continue to serve as CEO without interruption. Looking back at the denial ten days ago: the boss of one of the world's most valuable companies having an extramarital affair with a female executive of a major client was abnormal in itself. Ten days ago, reporters were pressing about this exact relationship; Jensen Huang knew it in his heart, yet he chose to say that. This letter surprised many people for another reason. In Silicon Valley, Jensen Huang's marriage has always been a love story told over and over again. In 1980, Jensen Huang entered Oregon State University to study electrical engineering. He had skipped grades and was only 16 years old when he enrolled, making him the youngest student in the class. In a basic electrical engineering class of 250 students, there were only 3 female students. One of them was Lori Mills, 19 years old. The teacher assigned lab partners to the students, and Jensen Huang and Lori were placed in the same group. Jensen Huang has recounted in public many times how he won Lori over. He walked up to her and asked: Do you want to see my homework? He made an agreement with Lori that they would do homework together every Sunday, and he promised to help her get an A in every class. Every Sunday became a date for the two of them. He said he would deliberately drag out the homework time so they could spend the whole day together.
When Jensen Huang was 20 years old, he told Lori that he would be the CEO of a company by the time he was 30. He later said himself that he had no idea what he was talking about at the time. The two married in 1985, when Jensen Huang was 22 and Lori was 24. After graduation, Lori joined Hewlett-Packard to do chip design. In April 1993, Jensen Huang and two engineer friends decided to found NVIDIA in a Denny's restaurant in San Jose, California. That year, he was exactly 30 years old. In the early years of the company, it almost went bankrupt several times. Jensen Huang worked day and night at the company, and Lori mostly managed everything big and small for their two children at home. Later, she gradually left the workplace. In 2007, the two used their joint names to establish the Jensen and Lori Huang Foundation, donating money to medical care, science, and education. Jensen Huang's famous black leather jacket is also related to Lori. He has said that he hates buying clothes and is glad his wife and daughter dress him. He has thirty or four dozen leather jackets, and online rumors say they were all picked out by his wife. Both children later joined NVIDIA. Their son, Spencer Huang, is a product manager in robotics, and their daughter, Madison Huang, is the marketing director. On the Chinese internet, Jensen Huang's image has always been that of a 46-year-old romance with zero scandals. In June this year, a video circulated on Weibo showing Jensen Huang being interviewed while Lori stood nearby watching him. Netizens said that look in her eyes was just like their first love 46 years ago.
One of the most moving tellings of this story was on May 20, 2025. That day, during Computex Taipei, Foxconn Chairman Liu Young-way gave a keynote speech, and in the last 20 minutes, he invited Jensen Huang on stage for a conversation. Liu Young-way asked him if he had anything he wanted to say to his wife. Jensen Huang said: When I met her I was only 17 and she had just turned 19, so for most of my life I have been in a relationship where the woman is older. He also said that when he saw Lori in class, he walked over and used his superpower. May 20th is known as a day for confession in Chinese, and Jensen Huang once again confessed his love to his wife in this public setting. Two days later, still in Taipei, on the evening of May 22, 2025, Jensen Huang treated guests at San Liu Shi Fu, a restaurant he frequently visits in Taipei. A reporter from Taiwan's United Daily News captured a photo. In the photo, Huang Le is wearing a pink sleeveless dress and talking to Jensen Huang with her arm around his shoulder. The video broadcast by Taiwan's TVBS television station captured even more than that. After the dinner gathering, the two walked out of the restaurant together with their entourage and posed for a photo at the entrance, seemingly with their arms around each other's waists. After the photo was taken, Huang Le leaned over and kissed Jensen Huang on the cheek. When Jensen Huang turned around to say goodbye to the guests, Huang Le got into a car first. Jensen Huang subsequently got in as well, and the two left in the same car. This was not the first time the two appeared in the same frame. The previous episode mentioned that drinking party in Taipei in June 2024. Huang Le told several Nvidia major clients that she bet she could summon Jensen Huang, and Jensen Huang actually came. Taiwan's EBC News investigated the bar this time: a bar on the 15th floor of the Illume Taipei. EBC compared the pillars by the window and the arrangement of the plants. That night was a party hosted by Taiwan's Giga-Byte Technology during the computer exhibition. The American company NetThunder, which posted the group photo, introduced Huang Le on LinkedIn at the time, using the name Megaspeed Chairman Alice Wong. There were two group photos in total, and in one of them, Giga-Byte founder Yeh Pei-cheng and General Manager Lee Yi-tai were also present.
Last night, netizens in mainland China dug up Huang Le's WeChat Moments again. Someone posted on Twitter that Huang Le had already changed her Moments to be visible only for the last three days, but the previous photos had long been downloaded and forwarded by many people. Her Moments nickname is simply Alice, and her bio is an English quote: stay hungry, stay foolish, a famous saying by Apple founder Steve Jobs. The top few updates on her homepage were all posted this year. The latest two are on June 7 and June 8, when she was in Italy, one in Naples and the other geo-located in Capri, with the English caption saying that she watched a very beautiful sunset with her besties. The one before that is on May 23, geo-located in Taipei, where she wrote: Full of harvests, lots of happiness. On the afternoon of May 23 this year, Jensen Huang happened to fly into Taipei, and as soon as he got off the plane, he went to Nangang to prepare for the keynote speech before the computer exhibition. Going further back, there is one on March 20, which reads GTC Wonderful time. GTC is Nvidia's most important annual technology conference, held in San Jose, California, where Jensen Huang gives a keynote speech on stage every year. This year's GTC was held from March 16 to 19, and her post was made the day after the conference ended. Among the group photos forwarded by netizens, one was indoors, with Jensen Huang wearing that black leather jacket, sitting closely with Huang Le on a wide chair, the two leaning very close together and smiling at the camera. One was in a restaurant overlooking a river view and tall buildings, with a table of Chinese food, the two raising red wine glasses to toast each other across the corner of the table. Another was outdoors with great sunlight, a lawn, a wooden fence, and hanging string lights behind them, the two standing side by side for a photo. These photos do not look like large group photos from business occasions. There are only the two of them in the photos. Taiwanese media commentators said that Huang Le was very high-profile, and many of her actions seemed deliberate to get people to take photos. As we mentioned in the previous episode, Huang Le herself posted group photos with Jensen Huang on her social media accounts. Tech investors told The New York Times that she and the people around her use their relationship with Jensen Huang as a brand to raise funds.
Regarding the person named Huang Le, Taiwanese financial commentator Hu Caiping stated that Huang Le is 49 years old this year, and her real name should be Huang Xiaole. She also mentioned that after meeting in Taipei in June 2024, Megaspeed purchased over $2 billion worth of AI servers in at least three batches. The first batch was only a few million dollars, while the subsequent two batches were about $1 billion each. In June 2025, another batch of $3.2 billion in servers was halted by the U.S. Department of Commerce. She speculates that the relationship between the two began shortly before the first batch of goods. Currently, she is the only source for these claims. People are also investigating where the money to buy these billions of dollars in chips came from. On May 13 this year, the U.S. short-selling firm Culper Research released a report targeting Nvidia. The firm itself shorted Nvidia, meaning it makes money when Nvidia's stock price falls, so its claims should be taken with a grain of salt. However, many of the citations in the report are public company registration documents and financial statements. According to this report, Megaspeed's asset scale was only $33 million at the end of 2023, and a year later, at the end of 2024, it had grown to $3 billion. Of the additional funds, $2.9 billion was a refundable deposit, with no mention of who provided it. The report also stated that Malaysian company registration documents show that in June 2024, Megaspeed's subsidiary in Malaysia mortgaged the entire company's assets to a company called Apex Enterprise Solutions. The report claims that the parent company of this firm is Alibaba. June 2024 was the same month as that drinking party in Taipei. The report's conclusion is that Alibaba, through a series of shell companies, provided the funding for Megaspeed behind the scenes. The report also quoted a current Megaspeed employee: when Jensen Huang visited data centers related to Megaspeed, people from Alibaba were often present. Alibaba, Megaspeed, and Nvidia have not publicly responded to these claims.
In the previous episode, we discussed that Megaspeed is building data centers in Malaysia and Indonesia to lease the computing power of Nvidia chips to Alibaba. According to current U.S. regulations, it is not illegal in principle for Chinese companies to lease computing power overseas. However, on June 8 this year, the U.S. Department of Defense updated its list of Chinese military companies, including Alibaba, on the grounds that it has direct or indirect ties to the Chinese military. Being on this list does not mean being sanctioned, but starting June 30 this year, the U.S. Department of Defense cannot sign contracts with companies on the list. Alibaba disagreed and sued the U.S. Department of Defense in June, demanding to be removed from the list; the case has yet to be resolved. In other words, if this short-selling report is true, the money used to buy billions of dollars in Nvidia chips comes from a company listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as a Chinese military enterprise, and the computing power of these chips is ultimately used by it. However, U.S. intelligence agencies are keeping an eye on Huang Le for more than just personal affairs and business. According to reports from The New York Times and the Financial Times, U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Beijing had two goals in having Huang Le approach Jensen Huang. One is to gather intelligence; Beijing wants to know how far the most advanced U.S. AI chips have progressed and what Nvidia's next-generation hardware looks like. The person in the world who holds this information is Jensen Huang. The other is to exert influence. Sources say that Huang Le was recruited to push Jensen Huang to lobby in Washington to have the U.S. relax chip export controls and allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China. The New York Times also reported that Huang Le had dealings with senior executives at Gigabyte, one of the major manufacturers that assembles servers for Nvidia chips. The investment network centered in Shanghai and Zhejiang behind Megaspeed has also invested in a cybersecurity company under the China Electronics Technology Group. The China Electronics Technology Group is one of China's largest military electronics enterprises.
As for the first objective, how much she actually accomplished remains without public evidence. The New York Times itself admitted that it is unclear what intelligence Huang Le obtained and transmitted, or how useful it was to Beijing. The second objective is different. It did not require stealing anything; it only required Jensen Huang to do what he was already doing. As we discussed in the last episode, over the past two years, Jensen Huang has spoken quite favorably about the Chinese market in Washington. He repeatedly told U.S. policymakers that the tighter the restrictions, the more China would build its own chips, effectively ceding the market to Huawei. Looking at the two timelines together, they are arranged as follows: In June 2024, at that dinner in Taipei, the two were photographed together for the first time. A few weeks later, Megaspeed began purchasing large quantities of Nvidia chip equipment. In April 2025, the H20 was banned, and Jensen Huang went to Washington to lobby. On May 22, there was that meal at Sanliu Shifu. In July, the H20 was cleared for sale. In October, before Trump met with Xi Jinping in South Korea, he lobbied to lift restrictions on Nvidia's most advanced Blackwell chips. According to The Wall Street Journal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were almost unanimously opposed, and the request was blocked. At the end of the year, Trump heard an intelligence briefing monitoring Huang Le. On December 8, Trump announced that the H200 could be sold to vetted Chinese customers, with the U.S. government taking a 25% cut of the sales. In 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce transferred the Megaspeed case to the Department of Justice. In March, at the Nvidia GTC conference, Huang Le posted about the wonderful times at GTC on her social media. In the spring, Rubio drafted a classified memorandum. In May, Trump visited China, and Jensen Huang boarded Air Force One in Alaska. On May 23, Jensen Huang arrived in Taipei, and Huang Le was also in Taipei that day. The two-plus years she spent by his side were precisely the time when his lobbying was most intense and U.S. chip policy was loosening the most.
Even after the warnings within the U.S. government were written, she did not leave. The overlap in time does not prove that policy was swayed by her; he might have been completely unaware of Huang Le's background. However, from Beijing's perspective, whether he knew or not is unimportant. What Beijing needed was for the boss of the world's most important chip company to speak up for the Chinese market in Washington. And Jensen Huang has been doing just that. Within the U.S. government, some people saw this clearly long ago. According to The New York Times, at the end of 2025, Trump had already heard an intelligence briefing about the monitoring of Huang Le, but no action was taken at the time. Whether this briefing had any impact on the clearance of the H200 is currently unknown. This spring, Rubio personally oversaw the drafting of that highly classified memorandum, alerting senior officials in the Trump administration that Jensen Huang had a close relationship with a Chinese spy. The memorandum was based on the intelligence community's electronic surveillance of Huang Le. Rubio was one of the cabinet members who had opposed selling Blackwell to China six months earlier. When Trump visited China in May, Jensen Huang was not on the initial list of accompanying entrepreneurs released by the White House. Later, Trump personally called to invite him, and he rushed to Alaska to board the plane while Air Force One was refueling. The New York Times stated that it is still unclear whether his initial absence from the list was related to Rubio's memorandum. In other words, when Jensen Huang accompanied Trump to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping, senior officials in the U.S. government had already read the memorandum. On October 8, Trump awarded Jensen Huang the National Medal of Science, one of the highest honors in the field of science and technology in the United States. Yesterday, after Jensen Huang's apology letter was issued, Trump was asked about the matter by reporters in Chicago. Trump said he had not yet spoken to Jensen Huang about it; he only knew that Jensen Huang was a good man, but no one knew exactly what had happened, and he hoped everything would be fine. He said Jensen Huang was a man of integrity who had done great things for the country, and he probably had his reasons, so he needed to hear what he had to say. When asked by a reporter if he regretted not taking action after hearing the intelligence briefing, Trump said he did not regret it. When asked if he would still bring Jensen Huang on his trip to Asia next week, Trump said: "I don't know, but I would certainly be willing to bring him." The White House confirmed in October that Trump's trip to Asia next week includes attending the ASEAN Summit in Manila, Philippines, on November 16, followed by a trip to Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC leaders' meeting and meet with Xi Jinping once again. The meeting in Shenzhen is scheduled for November 18 and 19. On the issue of Jensen Huang, there are clearly people within the Trump administration who are dissatisfied with Trump's attitude.
Let's look at what these reports contain: the year-long electronic surveillance of Huang Le, the name of Jensen Huang confirmed only after an identity disclosure process, the classified memorandum drafted under Rubio's direction, and the intelligence briefing Trump heard—these are all core secrets of the U.S. government, accessible only to a very small number of officials. The sources cited by The New York Times and The Financial Times are people familiar with U.S. intelligence and those who have heard the relevant briefings, which means these leaks were provided to the media by someone within the U.S. government.
Why would they do this? My analysis suggests three reasons. First, the internal path was blocked; the briefings were useless, and the memorandum was useless, as Jensen Huang still boarded Air Force One. Former CNBC tech reporter John Fort put it bluntly on Twitter: The hawks drafted the memorandum before the visit to China, hoping to keep Trump and Jensen Huang at a distance, but they failed. Consequently, the matter was leaked to the public. When you cannot persuade the President within the government, you put the matter before the public to let Congress and public opinion exert pressure.
Second, let us look at the timing. The first report came out on October 29, mentioning that Trump was expected to go to China in November and chips might be put back on the negotiating table. Just a few days later was the midterm election on November 3; this news was overshadowed by the election. As soon as the election ended, three consecutive reports were published on November 6, 7, and 8, each more weighty than the last. The detail about Marco Rubio drafting a memo was published on Sunday, November 8, just in time for the new week. For anti-China hawks in the US, their biggest worry was that next week at the Shenzhen venue, Jensen Huang would stand by Trump's side, and Blackwell would once again be placed on the negotiating table—something that almost got discussed in South Korea last October. This round of leaks was timed right before Shenzhen.
Third, let us look at the cost. Intelligence agencies are generally unwilling to make their surveillance targets public; once made public, that pipeline is cut off. The New York Times stated that surveillance on Huang Le has been ongoing, and companies related to her are still buying Nvidia chips through middlemen. Revealing these things is equivalent to cutting off an intelligence line they are currently using. To be willing to cut it off just to make it public shows that, in the eyes of the leakers, stopping Jensen Huang from continuing to influence US chip policy is more important than continuing to wiretap Huang Le.
There is also another detail. The matter of Marco Rubio drafting a memo had never been reported before. Releasing this news reveals at least two things: someone in the US government had issued a warning long ago, and the one who issued the warning was the Secretary of State; furthermore, the President had been warned. On November 8, the very day The New York Times pointed out his name, Marco Rubio was asked about this matter at the Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida. A reporter said The New York Times reported that you expressed concern over the relationship between Jensen Huang and Chinese spies. Rubio said, I cannot comment on any of these, because of the nature of the matter, I simply cannot comment. He also said he could not comment on internal matters of Nvidia, and he did not deny it. If a report were false, the Secretary of State could easily have said on the spot that it was not true; his choice of words—that due to the nature of the matter he cannot comment—is the standard response of US officials when encountering classified matters.
Taiwanese commentators have also raised another possibility: the leak might have been arranged by Beijing itself to force Jensen Huang into obedience. However, the core of these reports consists of surveillance records from US intelligence agencies and classified memos from the US government, things Beijing cannot get. Therefore, it is quite clear that this round of leaks came from within the US government and from anti-China hawks. This is not just an affair, but a showdown brought out into the open between anti-China hawks in the US government and Jensen Huang, who has been lobbying for the Chinese market these past few years. The next round is in Shenzhen.
So, what does Beijing have to say about this? We saw Chinese International watching the Chinese Ministry comment on this is on class listing.
The so-called Chinese spy rhetoric is completely baseless, a smear and slander. Let us trace Beijing's reaction from beginning to end. First, look at the official side. When the first report by The New York Times came out on October 29, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun was asked at the regular press conference the next day. His reply was only one sentence: The relevant reports are baseless and are purely a smear and slander against China.
What this sentence answered and what it did not answer must be looked at separately. Was Huang Le a Chinese citizen? Did she work as a reporter for CCTV and Hunan Television? Did she serve as vice president at CITIC Securities? Does she have any connection with the Ministry of State Security? Why does the gaming company Qizhi Dadao behind Megaspeed have central and local governments among its shareholders? The Foreign Ministry did not touch upon any of these specific questions. If this were truly fabricated out of thin air, it would not be hard to debunk; which TV station she worked as a reporter for and which brokerage firm she served at are clear to Beijing upon a check. When China's own AI chat software DeepSeek was asked about Huang Le, the response was: This is beyond my current scope of answers.
Jensen Huang's letter of apology was released on US time on November 8. On Beijing time, Monday afternoon, November 9, the Foreign Ministry had another regular press conference. Next, let us look at commentators and self-media. After the first report came out, an article circulated widely on the mainland internet with the headline: US Media Hype Up Jensen Huang Being Targeted by Chinese Spies, Only to Be Soundly Slapped in the Face by Nvidia and the Chinese Side. The article stated that the entire basis of The New York Times was just a name, two group photos, and suspicions from a few anonymous officials; Jensen Huang himself and the Foreign Ministry had both denied it. The article's conclusion was that the responses from both sides had given the answer loud and clear. Hu Xijin said at the time that The New York Times turned a business deal into a spy novel.
Ten days later, the person who came out to overturn this narrative of normal exchanges was Jensen Huang himself. Whom the face-slapping mentioned in that article is hitting now is already very clear. After Jensen Huang apologized, Hu Xijin published another long article at midnight on Beijing time, November 9, titled: Tycoon's Romance with Female Spy Compiled into World's Top Gossip, America Has Gone Crazy. His views, summarized, have four layers.
He said this was the Democrats winning the midterm elections and coming back to settle accounts with tech tycoons around Trump, with Musk and Jensen Huang among them. He said these claims relied entirely on anonymous sources and baseless speculation, and those photos might even have been generated by AI. He said Jensen Huang backed the wrong horse and is now in trouble both domestically and internationally, like meat on a chopping board. Finally, he said America is capitalism after all, and top capitalists will not truly be brought down.
Let's go through it point by point. To say this is a Democratic reckoning simply doesn't add up in terms of timing or personnel. At the end of 2025, the person who received the first intelligence briefing was Trump himself; this spring, the person overseeing the drafting of the classified memo was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, appointed by Trump himself and a Republican. The three committee chairs who sent the letter on November 4 summoning Jensen Huang to Congress are also all Republicans. The first report came out on October 29, before the midterm elections. The Democrats won't take over the congressional committees until January of next year. As for the claims that these are anonymous sources and that the photos were generated by AI, Jensen Huang's own letter of admission is not anonymous. The photo of them with arms around each other outside the San-Liu Restaurant was published by Taiwan's United Daily News with the reporter's name, and TVBS broadcasted the video. The group photos in the Moments feed were posted by Huang Le herself.
It is claimed that Jensen Huang picked the wrong side. According to Hu Xijin's narrative, Huang's problem was that he sided with Trump; yet the warnings issued to Jensen Huang within the U.S. government came precisely from people within Trump's own team. As for the final point—that top capitalists will not be brought down—Hu Xijin might be right about this; Trump and Nvidia's board of directors are still supporting him to this day. Whether Jensen Huang can weather this storm remains uncertain, but this is precisely what U.S. China hawks are most worried about.
Another point to note is that in Hu Xijin's long article, he spends a great deal of space talking about how chaotic American politics is, but not a single word is spent discussing what kind of person Huang Le actually is or whether she has any ties to the state security (MSS). Looking at mainland internet discourse these days, the hot topics on Weibo related to Jensen Huang carry tags such as Jensen Huang admits to affair, U.S. media claims Jensen Huang and Huang Le once had a relationship, and Jensen Huang's persona as a devoted husband is broken. Mainland netizens are digging through Huang Le's Moments, calculating how much money she could get from a divorce, and discussing how his loving-husband persona collapsed. As for the espionage aspect, it is usually brushed aside with a phrase like according to U.S. intelligence agencies. In the mainland's public opinion space, the matter has been framed as a billionaire's extramarital affair, while Beijing's response from day one until today has consisted solely of denials and ridicule, with not a single verifiable fact.
However, speaking of a billionaire's extramarital affair, there is indeed an astronomical sum of money involved. Many netizens have been calculating a certain sum over the past two days: if Lori and Jensen Huang divorce, how much can she walk away with? The popular figure circulating online is half of his net worth, over 80 billion U.S. dollars. This figure is inaccurate; let's calculate it item by item based on the annual shareholder meeting documents Nvidia submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this year.
As of March 23 this year, the Nvidia shares actually controlled in Jensen Huang's name total 870 million shares, accounting for 3.58% of all Nvidia shares. Based on last Friday's closing price of 186.64 U.S. dollars, this is worth approximately over 160 billion U.S. dollars. These 870 million shares are not all in his personal hands. The largest chunk, over 520 million shares, is held in a family trust named the Jensen Huang and Lori Huang Living Trust, with the two serving as co-trustees. Four companies are also registered under this trust, holding another 70-odd million shares. There are two other irrevocable trusts holding a total of 140 million shares; such trusts are generally established for children or for charitable purposes, and the assets have already been transferred out. Furthermore, over 58 million shares are in the name of the couple's foundation, and the documents state clearly that the couple has no economic interest in the foundation's shares. The remaining approximately 70 million shares are not detailed in the documents and are presumed to be held directly by him personally.
California is a community property state. Money earned and property acquired after marriage are split fifty-fifty in principle. Jensen Huang and Lori married in 1985, and Nvidia was founded in 1993, meaning all these shares were acquired after marriage. Irrevocable trusts and foundations are generally not divided during a divorce. What can actually be divided are the family trust, the four companies under it, plus the remaining approximately 70 million shares, totaling about 670 million shares, valued at roughly 125 billion U.S. dollars. Split down the middle, Lori could theoretically receive about 330-odd million shares, which at last Friday's price amounts to over 60 billion U.S. dollars, equivalent to roughly 1.4% of Nvidia's shares. Whether the two signed a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement is unknown to the outside world; if they did, this calculation would have to be adjusted accordingly.
What is the concept of over 60 billion U.S. dollars? Let's compare it with a precedent. In January 2019, Amazon founder Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced their divorce. The two had been married for 25 years, and Amazon was also founded after their marriage. Almost simultaneously, U.S. tabloids exposed Bezos's extramarital affair with TV host Lauren Sánchez. In April of that year, the two reached a settlement: MacKenzie took a quarter of the Amazon shares held by the couple, which was about 4% of Amazon's shares, then valued at over 36 billion U.S. dollars, hailed as the most expensive divorce in history. MacKenzie relinquished her rights and interests in The Washington Post and Blue Origin. Even more crucially, the voting rights for the portion of shares she received were delegated to Bezos to exercise. The market's biggest concern was whether the founder's divorce would cause problems for the company's control; once the voting rights were arranged, Amazon's stock price suffered no substantive impact.
If Jensen Huang's situation really leads to a divorce, the over 60 billion U.S. dollars Lori could receive would be more than 60% higher than MacKenzie's settlement back then. However, for Nvidia, how this family fortune is divided will have little impact. The reason is simple: Bezos held 16% of Amazon's shares back then, whereas Jensen Huang holds only 3.58%; he never relied on share ownership to control Nvidia. His weight at Nvidia relies on who he is. A divorce cannot shake the control of Nvidia.
What really makes Wall Street nervous is something else. Bezos's divorce was a private matter, but this time, Jensen Huang's situation involves national security. If an investigation by the board or Congress uncovers issues, he could be forced to step down as CEO. NVIDIA has never publicly named a successor; he has been at the helm alone for the 33 years since he founded the company. On Sunday night, after the news broke, NVIDIA's stock fell about 3.4% in pre-market trading, dropping from Friday's closing price of $186.64 to around $180. Based on NVIDIA's total share count, over $150 billion in market capitalization evaporated in a few hours—roughly equivalent to Jensen Huang's entire net worth. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, usually one of the firmest bulls on NVIDIA, said this incident is a stain on Huang that will at least trigger several rounds of congressional investigations and will weigh on NVIDIA's stock price for some time.
The letter dated November 4 was signed by three Republican chairs: House Select Committee on the CCP Chairman Moolenaar, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman McCaul, and Intelligence Committee Chairman Crawford. The letter stated that recent reports have raised significant national security concerns regarding the CCP's acquisition of sensitive U.S. technology and information, and that Congress must determine the extent to which U.S. national security has been threatened. They invited Jensen Huang to a closed-door briefing at the Rayburn Building next to the Capitol on November 18, to be held by the three committees jointly, to discuss two matters: his interactions with Huang Le, and NVIDIA's security measures to prevent foreign espionage. They requested that Huang respond by November 11 to confirm this time or propose an alternative. This is an invitation, not a subpoena, so the date can be changed. As of today, NVIDIA has not confirmed whether he will attend. The date of November 18 is somewhat coincidental; NVIDIA is scheduled to release its third-quarter earnings on November 17, and the congressional closed-door meeting is the next day. It is also on this day that Trump will attend the APEC meeting in Shenzhen, and he has said he is willing to take Huang with him.
The Democrats are also pursuing the matter. On October 29, the day the first report was released, Senator Warren demanded that Huang and the NVIDIA board provide an explanation to Congress, and Senator Coons stated that Congress would investigate these reports. The questions Congress wants to ask remain unanswered to this day: When did the relationship between the two begin? When meeting with Huang Le, did Huang discuss chip export policies or NVIDIA's unreleased products? Why did U.S. intelligence agencies never give him a warning after discovering him in surveillance records? Where is Huang Le now?
Our previous topic was: Whose side is Jensen Huang really on? It has been only five days since that episode went live, and several more things have been confirmed: he said his interactions with Huang Le were completely normal, but he lied, which he admitted himself in a letter; U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that this woman was recruited by the Ministry of State Security of the CCP; the U.S. Secretary of State wrote a warning in advance, yet the President still took him along; and Beijing is still willing to take him to Shenzhen next week. What needs to be questioned in this matter is no longer just Jensen Huang alone. On November 11, he must respond to Congress regarding whether he will attend the closed-door inquiry; on November 18, will he be sitting in a congressional closed-door meeting room, or will he be following Trump to Shenzhen? We will continue to follow this.
Huang Le is not the first Chinese woman to make U.S. intelligence agencies nervous. In 2015, the FBI gave a defensive briefing to California Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell, warning him that a Chinese woman around him named Fang Fang was a CCP intelligence operative. Fang Fang had fundraised for his campaign and even introduced an intern into his office. Swalwell subsequently cut ties with her, and he himself was not accused of any wrongdoing. Jensen Huang has never received such a warning from the FBI like the one given to Swalwell. In 2017, U.S. counterintelligence officials also warned Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner: Wendi Deng, the ex-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, might be using her friendship with him to seek benefits for the Chinese government. Deng's spokesperson said she was unaware of any such concerns from the FBI. Their stories are all different, and Wendi Deng's experience is far more complex than this.
Do you think Jensen Huang is still fit to continue running NVIDIA? Whose story are you more interested in, Fang Fang's or Wendi Deng's? Please leave a comment in the section below; we will find an appropriate time to do a separate episode on it. That is all for today. If you found this episode valuable, please like, hit the notification bell, share, and subscribe to this channel. Those who are able can join as members to support our small channel. I am Yao Yao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. See you next time.