Follow-Up: Rubio Oversaw Classified Memo Warning Top Officials About Jensen Huang's Close Ties to Alice Huang

Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally oversaw the drafting of a highly classified memo that circulated among senior Trump administration officials this spring, warning that Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang was in a close relationship with a woman U.S. officials had identified as a Chinese intelligence operative, The New York Times reported on November 8. It is the first disclosure that the internal warning over the matter reached the level of the secretary of state.

Citing multiple people briefed on the memo, the Times said it was built on electronic surveillance of Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and an executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed. U.S. officials believe she was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security to gather information on Huang and Nvidia. The memo circulated among officials holding high-level security clearances ahead of President Donald Trump's trip to China in May, and it also took a fresh look at Huang's lobbying on chip exports to China, including the arrangement under which the U.S. government takes a cut of Nvidia's GPU sales to China.

Despite the internal warning, Huang was initially left off the invitation list for the China delegation. According to the report, when Trump stopped over in Alaska during the trip and saw news coverage of Huang's absence, he personally invited the Nvidia chief to join the delegation. The White House and the State Department declined to comment on the Times report. Nvidia has previously said Huang's interactions with Alice Huang were "not unusual or unexpected" and were ordinary meetings between a chief executive and customer executives.

Scrutiny in Congress is widening as well. The chairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have asked Huang to attend a closed-door briefing on November 18 and to reply by November 11 on whether he will attend. The Wall Street Journal reported that Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said on Saturday that he would investigate the matter.

The Financial Times reported on November 6 that a U.S. intelligence memo described a romantic relationship between Huang and Alice Huang. On November 8, Huang told Nvidia employees in a memo that he had been unfaithful to his wife, and Nvidia's board announced an independent investigation into whether he had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, saying it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. Huang remains chief executive and is cooperating with the review. The espionage allegations have not been independently verified, neither Huang nor Alice Huang has been charged with any crime, and China's foreign ministry has previously dismissed the claims as groundless.

Nvidia shares closed on Friday at $186.64, up 2.78 percent, before the weekend disclosures were published. The market open on Monday, November 9, will be investors' first chance to price them; Nvidia is scheduled to report quarterly results on November 17.

Related: Jensen Huang Admits Infidelity to Staff as Nvidia Board Launches Independent Investigation

Reference: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal

Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：美国国务卿卢比奥官方肖像（2025年1月）。美国国务院摄，公有领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Official portrait of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, January 2025. U.S. Department of State, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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