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President Donald Trump was reportedly briefed about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence operative in 2025, as scrutiny mounts over the chipmaker's $25 million contribution to the president's White House ballroom project.
Trump said Monday that he learned of the allegations "not too long ago," despite reports that intelligence concerning the relationship had been brought to his attention in late 2025.
Asked whether he knew about the allegations during his May trip to China, Trump said: "No, I didn't hear about it then."
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Trump Says He Learned of It Only Recently
Huang acknowledged an extramarital affair on Sunday but did not publicly identify the woman involved. Media reports have linked him to Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and former executive at Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based data center company that purchases Nvidia chips.
According to the New York Times, U.S. intelligence officials believe Alice Huang was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), the country's main civilian intelligence agency.
Jensen Huang and Alice Huang are not related.
The president took questions about Jensen Huang during an impromptu briefing Monday, his first since the midterm elections.
"Well, I've been hearing about it, and I've been reading a little bit about it over a period of time, but not too long ago," Trump said when asked when he was first informed. "And we'll look into it. I know the FBI's looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he'll be in good shape."
He said he had spoken with the Nvidia chief that day. Jensen Huang told him "he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy," Trump said. "And I really believe him."
Asked whether he had seen an intelligence memo about Alice Huang, the president said: "I'd certainly check with the intelligence people. It could have been mentioned. Certainly, it didn't make much of an impact on me."
Reporters had questioned Trump about the allegations the previous evening. Asked Sunday whether he wished he had acted sooner on the intelligence, Trump said "I don't think so" and called Jensen Huang an "honorable guy." The president has repeatedly praised the executive and invited him to accompany his delegation on foreign trips.
Newsweek asked the White House whether he would expand on his remarks. The press office referred Newsweek to his comments at Monday's briefing.
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Nvidia's $25 Million Ballroom Contribution
Nvidia became a contributor to Trump's White House ballroom project in October 2025, according to the Washington Post. Documents obtained by the newspaper and published in October 2026 revealed that the chipmaker had committed $25 million.
The Post reported that Nvidia had requested anonymity for its contribution, although CEO Jensen Huang had publicly acknowledged the donation in October 2025 without disclosing the amount.
The contribution has drawn renewed attention amid reports that Trump was briefed on intelligence concerning Huang's relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence operative and Nvidia's efforts to ease restrictions on semiconductor exports to China.
However, the available reporting does not establish whether Trump's briefing preceded Nvidia's contribution or whether the donation influenced any administration decisions.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Trump on Tuesday over his handling of the intelligence allegations, explicitly linking the controversy to Nvidia's $25 million ballroom contribution.
"Instead, Trump invited Nvidia's CEO to join him on a visit to Beijing, took his advice on granting the PRC access to some of our most advanced AI chips, and accepted a twenty-five-million-dollar donation from the company for his golden ballroom," Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Schumer called for an investigation into Nvidia's influence on the Trump administration's national security decisions, including its policy on advanced semiconductor exports to China.
A Classified Memo Preceded the China Trip
The New York Times reported that Trump was briefed on intelligence concerning Alice Huang and her relationship with Jensen Huang roughly a year ago. The newspaper reported that no action was taken at the time.
According to the Times, Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw a classified memo concerning Alice Huang that was shared with a small group of senior officials ahead of Trump's May 12–15 visit to China.
Newsweek has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Jensen Huang was not on the original list of executives accompanying the president, and the Times said it was unclear whether his omission was connected to the intelligence memo. After his absence drew media attention, Trump invited him to join Air Force One during a stop in Alaska. Huang then accompanied the presidential delegation to China.
U.S. intelligence agencies had reportedly been monitoring Alice Huang's communications for at least a year, according to the Times. Officials subsequently sought to unmask the identity of an American whose communications appeared in intercepted material. That individual was Jensen Huang, the newspaper reported.
Peter Mattis, president of the Jamestown Foundation and a former CIA counterintelligence analyst, told Newsweek that intelligence leads take time to turn into something officials can act on.
"There's a difference between knowing something and a difference between having something be really actionable," he said. "There's a different burden of proof.
"There may have been an intelligence tip-off, there may have been different things that pointed in this direction," Mattis said. "But to actually develop the, let's call it a more definitive basis for action, that's something that's going to require time no matter what."
Nvidia's most advanced processors are subject to U.S. export controls restricting their sale to China. Jensen Huang has lobbied to ease those limits, and in January 2026 the Commerce Department revised its licensing policy to allow applications for exports of Nvidia's H200 chips to China to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, subject to security conditions. Nvidia subsequently disclosed that licenses permitting limited shipments began in February, although Chinese government restrictions constrained sales.
What Chinese Intelligence Could Have Gained
"When you're at the peak of a global industry like this, you are likely to be a target," Mattis said.
The Chinese Communist Party sees itself in a competition with the United States for global leadership, Mattis said, with science and technology at its core and artificial intelligence particularly important. Targeting a company's senior executives, he argued, can be a political strategy.
"If you're targeting the C-suite, that's not about technical details, that's about politics," Mattis said. "Because these are people who are making powerful recommendations. They are speaking from voices of tremendous authority. And they have access to important people."
Understanding or shaping those recommendations, he said, is "the ultimate form of influence" because Beijing wants local voices to carry its message, giving it more credibility and making its influence appear organic.
Mattis said he does not believe that, even in the worst case, Jensen Huang was a witting agent of influence.
"I think there was probably a substantial effort to shape his understanding of where things are," he said, "in the hopes of shifting his recommendations or providing some direction."
The central question, according to Mattis, is whether the MSS was able to shape U.S. policy. "That is the central element of this unfolding saga," he said.
He also pushed back on the idea that spies are only interested in stealing secrets.
"We have this misconception that intelligence is about the collection of classified information," Mattis said. "No conversation between [Jensen Huang] and President Trump, for example, is going to be a classified conversation. It's technically open source, but you and I don't have access to it."
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People without security clearances rarely think of themselves as targets, he said. Large companies also tend to treat security as personal protection rather than running counterintelligence programs to identify vulnerabilities.
"And consequently, you have a kind of carelessness that can result in places where you really should not be careless," he said, "such as in China."
Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired senior intelligence officer and author of Chinese Espionage: Operations and Tactics, sees two main dangers.
"The first is that they had an understanding of US policy towards China on this issue," he told Newsweek. "With that understanding, they could work to counter US policy to favor Chinese interests.
"The second is that the MSS would gain knowledge of specific individuals in the administration and Nvidia and their respective positions on export controls and technology transfer," he added. "This knowledge would drive additional MSS intelligence collection targeting those individuals and their communications for potential exploitation."
If Alice Huang were working for Chinese intelligence, the MSS would likely have sought information about administration and Nvidia personnel who supported or opposed semiconductor sales to China, Eftimiades said. Such information could have helped the agency identify additional intelligence targets.
However, he cautioned that much remains unknown.
"At this point, we still do not know what information the Chinese government acquired, and whether they were able to act on it."
The Risks for Nvidia and U.S. National Security
Eftimiades also pointed to a wider pattern of Chinese intelligence activity.
"It is however, important to note how easily, and pervasively, Chinese intelligence has penetrated not only the US government, state governments, but industry as well," he said.
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies defense and foreign policy, told Newsweek the fallout could have limits.
"[Jensen] Huang's motives must now be suspect. That is the key point," he said. "But he did not make the actual decisions on export control policy so the damage may be limited."
Rachel Cuda, a former CIA officer and military contractor, told Newsweek the risk is "serious enough that it should be a calling card for tighter controls around key executives."
"What everyone understands is that Jensen Huang is not just a CEO. He has been one of the most effective private advocates for expanded U.S. chip sales to China," she said.
Still, she cautioned against treating his lobbying as an intelligence failure on its own.
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"It is not unusual for an executive to be lobbying political powers in the US for less regulations on export controls. They are usually thinking of their own bottom line, not intelligence or arms races," Cuda said. "So we can't treat lobbying as a singular counterintelligence failure."
Cuda identified three potential concerns: what Beijing could learn about Washington's views on export controls, including timelines and negotiating positions; the possibility of preferential treatment or reduced scrutiny for customers that could divert chips; and attempts to influence Jensen Huang's advocacy for greater access to the Chinese market.
She noted that Megaspeed had already attracted regulatory scrutiny.
"Any acceleration of Chinese access through better information or looser enforcement is strategically relevant," she said, adding that "the most advanced designs and manufacturing remain tightly controlled."
Honeypot operations, in which an intelligence service uses a romantic or sexual relationship to get close to a target, tend to move slowly, according to Cuda.
"Even though Hollywood would like you to believe otherwise, honeypots are generally targeting influence and insight at a glacial pace, not trying to pull off a full blueprint heist," she said.
Once such a relationship is established, she said, "the target's natural caution drops, conversations become unguarded, and the operative gains ongoing access to personal patterns, professional networks" and, over time, influence or compromising material.
"Success does not require the target to hand over classified documents; sustained proximity and lowered defenses are often enough to generate valuable insight or leverage."
Investigators and Nvidia's Board Step In
Trump said the FBI is looking at the matter "in terms of something else." He did not say Jensen Huang himself is under investigation.
The Justice Department has opened a criminal inquiry into Megaspeed, according to The New York Times.
The newspaper also reported that a separate Commerce Department investigation into suspected chip smuggling involving the company was paused in late 2025 after Nvidia's general counsel, Tim Teter, contacted investigators and the Justice Department requested that Commerce stand down.
The matter was subsequently transferred to the Justice Department. The Times raised questions about the circumstances surrounding the decision but did not establish that Nvidia improperly interfered with the investigation.
Nvidia's board announced an independent investigation Sunday into reports that Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. It said it had "no reason to believe" national security or company secrets had been compromised and expressed confidence in Huang's leadership.
On Tuesday, November 10, the company announced that independent directors had retained former acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim and his firm to assist with the investigation.
Eftimiades doubts the board's review will get far.
"An independent internal board review, even with outside legal counsel, [is] unlikely to be able to secure details of Mr. [Jensen] Huang's actions," he said. "He is the most likely source of the information they will receive."
Federal investigators are in a different position, he said. "However federal government investigations into the process would have access to communications between Alice Huang and the MSS. That data would likely provide insight into MSS tasking and what information Ms. [Alice] Huang collected."
In an email to employees, Jensen Huang apologized and wrote: "I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America's national security."
A shareholder filed a lawsuit against Nvidia and Jensen Huang on Monday, alleging that they misled investors about the relationship and its potential implications. Nvidia shares fell more than 4 percent that day.
Three Republican House committee chairs—Brian Mast of Florida, John Moolenaar of Michigan and Rick Crawford of Arkansas—have requested a closed-door briefing with Jensen Huang on November 18.
Their November 4 letter said reports concerning Huang's relationship with Alice Huang "raise significant national security concerns regarding the PRC's access to sensitive U.S. technology."
The lawmakers requested confirmation or an alternative date by November 11.
What Happens Next
China's Foreign Ministry denies the claims. "The so-called Chinese spy allegation is unsubstantiated. It is nothing but smears against China," spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Monday.
Nvidia reports quarterly earnings on November 17, a day before the requested House briefing. The company hasn't said whether Jensen Huang will attend.
Trump is expected to visit China next week for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen. Asked whether he would raise the allegations involving Jensen Huang with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: "I'm sure President Xi will ask me about it."
Cuda said the meeting should go ahead. "Do not let the scandal force an abrupt public reversal in either direction on chips," she said.
Mattis said Jensen Huang's future is up to him, his family and the company. If the episode pushes Nvidia to think beyond its commercial interests, he said, it "can be an opportunity to move forward, to make the company stronger."
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Samantha Beech and Rhian Morgan.
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