Report says Trump was told of Huang spy link in 2025 and chose not to act

Timeline traces Megaspeed from 7Road Holdings to Nvidia cloud partner

The New York Times reported in October 2025 that intelligence officials told Donald Trump that Jensen Huang and Alice Huang had a relationship, and alleged that Alice Huang was a Chinese spy. Trump chose not to take action, according to the Times report. Trump has since said at a White House press conference that he did not remember being briefed on the matter.

That account now anchors a timeline of the scandal, published by the Guardian, that reconstructs the three years between Megaspeed’s corporate reorganization and Huang’s exit as chief executive of Nvidia — the company at the center of the AI boom that he co-founded in 1993. Huang, an electrical engineer by education, stewarded Nvidia from a $1bn firm when it went public in 1999 to a company valued at more than $4tn in 2026. In a matter of days, after disclosures of an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a top executive at the datacenter firm Megaspeed whom US officials believe to be a Chinese spy, wiped more than $600bn from the company’s valuation — an accusation China has denied as a “smear.” US officials had reportedly started to monitor the Megaspeed executive after suspecting the firm was diverting powerful Nvidia AI chips to Chinese firms, in potential violation of export restrictions. The Biden and Trump administrations had prohibited US companies from exporting some of the more powerful AI chips to China over national security concerns.

The timeline begins with Megaspeed itself, the datacenter firm at the center of the spy allegations. Before it was its own company, Megaspeed was part of 7Road Holdings Ltd, one of China’s largest video game companies, and at that time was controlled by a firm called Huang Le Ltd — an entity affiliated with Alice Huang, according to Bloomberg. In November 2023, Huang Le Ltd sold its shares in Megaspeed to a Singaporean shell company called Swiftdata, weeks after Joe Biden issued an executive order limiting investment in China’s AI industry. Soon after, Megaspeed was designated an Nvidia cloud partner, which meant the company could get preferential access to Nvidia’s advanced AI chips.

Jensen Huang was seen with Alice Huang in June 2024, at a bar in Taipei where several AI industry executives had gathered. The person who introduced them was her husband, Kang Wei, who had worked with her on several business ventures, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Singapore-based firm then fielded 200 shipments of AI chips, according to the New York Times, and rented out compute power fueled by those chips to major companies including the Chinese firms Tencent and Ali Baba.

In September 2025, the US Department of Commerce began investigating whether Megaspeed was diverting Nvidia chips to Chinese firms, a potential violation of export restrictions on advanced AI chips, according to the New York Times. The timeline also records that Huang visited Donald Trump in the weeks after Trump took office.

In April 2025, Huang attended a $1m-a-person donors’ dinner at Mar-a-Lago, after which the president briefly paused imposing restrictions on Nvidia chip sales to China; the restriction was ultimately implemented shortly after. Jensen Huang and Alice Huang then attended an industry conference in Taiwan, and the New York Times reported that Alice Huang had visited Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, two months earlier.

Later in 2025, Trump granted Nvidia permission to sell its second most powerful chips to China, with a portion of the sales going to the US government.

In May 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio drafted a memo warning that Jensen Huang had become close to an alleged Chinese spy, based on information gleaned from electronic surveillance of Alice Huang, according to the New York Times. Trump still invited Huang on his trip to China, writing in a social media post that he was honored to have “the Great Jensen Huang” on the trip. At the time, Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang was nothing out of the ordinary.

In a letter to employees, Huang said he had an extramarital affair, apologized to his family and reaffirmed his commitment to the company. The Nvidia board said it was investigating the relationship but had no reason to believe national security secrets or company secrets were divulged. “The board has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team and will provide further updates as appropriate,” members of the board said in a statement. Silicon Valley leaders rallied behind him, and at the time it appeared that Huang might hang on to his job, despite his image being tarnished.

That position unraveled quickly. At a press conference on 9 November, Trump said he was “amazed” by the allegations that Alice Huang is a spy and said the FBI is investigating Jensen Huang, adding that he thought Huang would be “in good shape.” “I asked him that question: ‘Did you have any idea that she was a spy?’ He said, ‘I had no idea that she was a spy,’” Trump said. “I really believe him.”

Retail investor Mark Kistenmacher filed a lawsuit accusing Nvidia of misleading investors over Huang’s affair, claiming that the company did not disclose the situation and that the matter raised national security concerns that could threaten the company’s business prospects. The New York Times reported that Huang also allegedly had an affair with the company’s vice-president of healthcare. Just a week earlier, Huang’s ouster had looked unlikely; then the Wall Street Journal reported that the Nvidia board was preparing to oust the CEO. Huang then stepped down, ending his 33-year tenure leading the company he co-founded in 1993.

The board has begun a search for its next chief executive, with chief financial officer Colette Kress serving as interim CEO, while shares in the company continue to plummet — after a matter of days in which the affair disclosures wiped more than $600bn from a valuation that stood above $4tn in 2026.