Congress wants answers after Trump ally Huang caught in alleged spying scandal - USA Today
WASHINGTON – The revelation that NVIDIA founder and Trump ally Jensen Huang had an extramarital affair with a businesswoman who’s suspected of being a Chinese spy has lawmakers in both parties demanding classified briefings and pushing for investigations into the scandal that could have significant national security implications.
Huang stepped down as CEO of the chipmaker on Nov. 12. Before his departure, he was in frequent contact with President Donald Trump.
He flew to Beijing on Air Force One in May and was part of Trump's AI summit in September. He attended a state dinner honoring Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House the week before. Huang told USA TODAY in an interview last year that he tried to sit down with Trump and brief him every time he visited Washington.
“It surely doesn't look good right now, but there's probably a lot of information that we don't know yet,” Sen. Jim Justice, R-West Virginia, said of Trump’s tight-knit relationship with Huang. “The president could very likely have thought, ‘Well, look at all the greatness he's done and I didn't know a thing in the world about this other stuff.’”
The woman with whom Jensen Huang reportedly had the relationship, Alice Huang, is under federal investigation. Alice Huang was an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company that was a customer of NVIDIA’s. She is suspected of smuggling NVIDIA’s advanced semiconductors into China.
Trump is said to have been briefed on the matter months ago, and he has publicly sympathized with NVIDIA’s Huang multiple times since the relationship became public, calling him an “honorable” guy who’d done an “incredible job” leading the technology company in remarks over the past week.
Congressional leaders are pushing for briefings and investigations into the matter that cost the tech CEO his company and sent NVIDIA’s stock tumbling.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor this week he wants a “full accounting” of what Trump knew about the alleged spying and how Jensen Huang influenced the administration’s national security decisions, including its decision to allow NVIDIA to sell advanced computer chips to China last year for a cut of the profits.
On Nov. 12, Schumer posted on social media that "Congress must demand answers" from Jensen Huang, NVIDIA and the Trump administration, despite the CEO's resignation.
"Americans deserve to know that those at the highest levels of power are putting America first, not their bottom line or their personal friendships," he said.
Senate Banking Committee chairman Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, requested Nov. 12 that Jensen Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees export controls and has also come under scrutiny, appear before his committee to testify Dec. 3. He told the tech founder in a letter that if he refused to come voluntarily, the committee was prepared to subpoena him.
And the GOP leaders of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees, as well as the Select Committee on China, on Nov. 12 sent a second request to Jensen Huang to appear before Congress. They also sent letters to NVIDIA General Counsel Tim Teter and Undersecretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler.
"As reports continue to come to light regarding Jensen Huang, NVIDIA, and MegaSpeed, there are clear national security concerns that need to be addressed immediately,” wrote Reps. Brian Mast, Rick Crawford and John Moolenar. “We need to know the full extent to which our national security has been put at risk."
Rep. Chris Pappas, D-New Hampshire, who will be joining the U.S. Senate next year, told USA TODAY he was “deeply concerned with the reports.”
“We have to get to the bottom of whether America’s national security has been compromised,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a Nov. 12 press conference. “There are certainly more questions than answers.”
The New York Times reported that Trump was briefed roughly a year ago on intelligence about the alleged spying and did not act on it. The publication also reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw the drafting of a classified memo last spring that Jensen Huang had a close relationship with the Megaspeed executive, who shares the same last name but is of no relation.
Rubio has declined to comment. Trump did not say this week when he first learned of the allegations, saying only that it was “over a period of time, but not too long ago” and after he took the NVIDIA founder with him to China.
Trump also said this week that he did not regret sitting on the information once he found out. “I think he's an honorable guy,” he said on Nov. 8. “I think he probably has an excuse for it. You have to hear it. No, you can't do that with people.”
He said that Jensen Huang had done an “amazing job” with NVIDIA, the world’s first $4 trillion company, and invoked the country’s bustling stock market. Trump said on Nov. 10 that he’d spoken to the tech CEO, who told him he had no idea the woman was an accused spy.
The U.S. stock market fell on the tech founder's resignation, with NVIDIA’s stock making a steep drop. Trump suggested that Apple’s Executive Chairman Tim Cook and former CEO take over the company.
On Capitol Hill, both parties were focused on a push for greater export controls on advanced chips and more congressional oversight.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, said he was glad the NVIDIA founder resigned and said a congressional investigation would be appropriate.
“It's probably wise. I mean, given huge national security concerns here, I mean, a Chinese spy, and where have those chips been going? I'm opposed to exporting these chips,” he said.
Questions about the exports of NVIDIA chips have turned the spotlight on Lutnick, the leader of the Commerce Department, which oversees such controls. Lutnick is among the U.S. officials who were reportedly briefed on the spying allegations by Rubio.
The New York Times reported that a Commerce Department investigation into Megaspeed was halted after NVIDIA intervened. Axios later reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Lutnick in the Situation Room about Megaspeed being left off a list of companies that pose a national security threat. The Commerce Department, in response to Axios’ reporting, denied that the confrontation happened.
Hawley said he was concerned about Jensen Huang’s relationship with the alleged Chinese spy.
“But I'm not worried about our government,” Hawley said.
“I'm worried about their government,” he said of Beijing, “and I'm worried about what they've gotten from him.”
Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Nebraska, told USA TODAY that Congress needs to “find out what happened with regard to Commerce's assessment of Megaspeed and what action is being taken or not being taken."
"We need to have an investigation to figure out what Commerce's role in this has been, but also what the DOJ has been doing. We need to have the opportunity to provide that oversight in Congress."
He also said that NVIDIA needs to determine what sensitive information may have been passed onto the Chinese. “We need to know what happened to the chips that may have been underreported."
NVIDIA has said it is conducting an investigation into the potential national security implications.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a Nov. 12 press conference that the Justice Department is currently investigating whether Alice Huang is a spy and hasn't reached a conclusion "around who she is or is not."
