Nvidia sex scandal fuels pressure on Trump's White House over China chip controls

A reported affair involving Jensen Huang, the chief of Nvidia, has grown from a personal scandal into a political crisis reaching the White House, raising questions about export controls, national security and presidential judgment.

Huang enjoyed a level of access to President Donald Trump that few business leaders could match. He met Trump repeatedly, travelled with him to Britain and, in May, joined him on Air Force One for the trip to China. He was also a prominent voice in a fierce internal debate: how much of America's most advanced technology should reach Beijing.

Nvidia makes the chips that power the artificial intelligence boom, and Washington has restricted exports of its most advanced processors to China since 2022, fearing they could aid Beijing's military. Enforcement is difficult: chips can be legally sold to buyers in places such as Singapore and Malaysia, then diverted to China, while Chinese firms can rent computing power at data centres abroad.

Huang has long argued the restrictions are counterproductive, saying they shut Nvidia out of a huge market and spur Chinese companies to build their own alternatives. Trump appeared sympathetic, allowing Nvidia last year to resume sales of certain chips to China in return for a share of the revenue, although its most advanced Blackwell chips remain off limits.

That relationship now looks far more complicated. Huang's reported affair with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed who is no relation, has raised the possibility that a foreign intelligence operation targeted a businessman with unusually close access to the president. US intelligence reportedly suspects Alice Huang of links to Chinese intelligence, which Beijing has rejected. Nvidia's board says it has no reason to believe company secrets or national security were compromised.

Scrutiny has fallen on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose department controls exports of sensitive technology and was being pressed to act against Megaspeed, an Nvidia customer suspected of helping divert chips to China. A highly classified memo about the concerns was shared with Lutnick, and he resisted taking action. Megaspeed chief executive Tan Yong Pong, also known as James Tan, said Thursday that the company "takes its compliance obligations under US export control laws extremely seriously."

Other senior officials wanted a tougher response. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly questioned why Megaspeed had not been placed on the Commerce Department's blacklist. The New York Times reported that Nvidia's general counsel contacted investigators probing suspected chip smuggling by Megaspeed, invoking a senior Trump appointee, after which the department allegedly froze the investigation and handed it to the Justice Department.

Members of Congress from both parties want answers. Democrats have launched an investigation into how the Commerce Department vetted Chinese companies approved to buy AI chips, and Republicans are also questioning the approach. Representative John Moolenaar, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said American AI firms should succeed but "should never jeopardise our nation's security." Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said Huang's resignation does not absolve him and urged Lutnick to explain why export control loopholes remain open.

Huang's departure has not eased the pressure. His team told Republican lawmakers on Wednesday that he plans to cooperate with a request to testify behind closed doors. The White House did not answer the BBC's request for comment but told the New York Post that Trump has complete confidence in Lutnick, calling him "the most transformative commerce secretary in modern history," even amid reports that officials are weighing whether to force him out.

The questions now extend to Trump himself, who cultivated the relationship with Huang, was directly involved in decisions on chip sales to China and, according to the New York Times, was briefed on the intelligence concerns. What began with one executive's private life now tests who was responsible for protecting America's most sensitive technology.