Nvidia board expresses confidence in Huang as he presses for AI-chip access

Board inquiry follows affair disclosure involving suspected Chinese intelligence operative

The Wall Street Journal’s Nov. 9 edition of The 10-Point reported that Nvidia’s board launched an investigation into an affair disclosed by chief executive Huang involving a person identified as a suspected Chinese intelligence operative. The board paired the inquiry with an expression of confidence in its co-founder. The Journal said the combination raised national-security questions, and it reported no finding establishing that the person held an intelligence role.

In its introduction, the newsletter said it was examining “the espionage inquiry encircling one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful executives,” referring to Huang, and the family leadership structure that helps him run Nvidia. The Journal described Nvidia as a $4 trillion tech giant and Huang as its chief executive and co-founder. Morgan Smith and Natasha Dangoor curated and edited the newsletter with Editor in Chief Emma Tucker.

Huang was lobbying the U.S. government and leaders around the world to allow the free flow of chips powering the latest AI models, and he was attempting to rebut concerns that such an approach could compromise national security, the Journal said.

Those efforts address a different question from the board inquiry. One concerns global access to chips used in the latest AI models and the security objections raised to that approach; the other concerns Huang’s disclosed relationship and the person described as a suspected Chinese intelligence operative.

Outside the Nvidia account, the newsletter covered the economic demands facing Democrats after the midterms. Matt Grossman, Jeanne Whalen and Gavin Bade reported that voters who powered the Democrats’ triumph in the midterms delivered a blunt message: “Make the economy work for us.” Democrats still had to deliver, and success was not assured despite the party’s pending control of the House and Senate.

Many of those demands were beyond lawmakers’ reach to fix. The Journal said Congress’s main tools, taxes and spending, were limited and slow-moving, and lawmakers still faced Trump’s veto. Satisfying voter wishes also could have unintended consequences, the report said.

The edition also presented Babson College’s findings on youth entrepreneurship. Babson found that at least 23% of Americans ages 18 to 34 were running their own business or side hustle last year, up from 19% in 2021. Among Americans ages 18 to 24, the rate of running a business or side hustle had more than doubled from a decade ago. The Journal said, “No demographic is launching enterprises faster than 20-somethings.”

The Journal connected that change to AI disrupting entry-level jobs once viewed as reliable career steppingstones. Younger workers were deploying the technology to bypass corporate ladders and build companies of their own, the newsletter said.

Business reporting focused on a string of high-level departures from Blackstone’s real-estate business. Peter Grant reported that nearly a third of the unit’s senior managing directors had left over the past three years as Blackstone’s investment funds for the sector slumped. The departures covered a dozen Blackstone real-estate executives, who left for a variety of reasons. The Journal described Blackstone as “the world’s biggest property investor.”

Grant said some executives had become weary of a job that required constant travel and being on call nonstop; others retired or were eased out. A common thread was that they were no longer making the money they had in their best years because Blackstone’s real-estate funds were not earning as much. Grant also reported that borrowing costs were high, commercial real estate was struggling and industry executives did not see prospects for that situation changing soon.

A separate feature examined amenities wealthy homeowners were installing to encourage their adult children to spend more time at home. The Journal reported that homeowners across the country were spending millions on features designed to draw teenage and adult children back. Golf simulators, juice bars, vending machines and dance studios often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the stated hope was that such features would encourage more family time.

Many homeowners found the effort had limited results. The Journal wrote, “Many are finding, however, that salons and pickleball courts only go so far.”

The newsletter’s international-security item documented armed nonstate groups operating in several regions. The Journal wrote, “Violent gangs vying to control cocaine exports have destabilized once-peaceful Ecuador.” The same item said, “In northern Africa’s Sahel region, religious insurgents and ethnic militias have chased government authorities from entire provinces.”

For Southeast Asia, the newsletter wrote, “In Southeast Asia, criminal syndicates run industrial-scale fraud centers and drug operations from ungoverned pockets of Myanmar and Cambodia.” It added, “Around the world, guerrillas, cartels and syndicates are challenging traditional concepts of nationhood as they use violence and coercion to exert dominance over territory and people.”

International Committee of the Red Cross estimates put the number of people living in areas controlled or contested by armed nonstate groups at more than 200 million across 60 countries.