Nvidia Corp’s shares yesterday tumbled after an internal investigation into whether CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort put his future at the artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker under scrutiny.
The internal probe followed a media report that Huang had a close relationship with a Chinese businesswoman who allegedly passed information to Beijing. Huang told Nvidia’s employees that he had been unfaithful to his wife, without disclosing details of the relationship.
Late last month, the New York Times reported that Huang had a relationship with Huang Le (黃樂, also known as Alice Huang), an unrelated former executive of Singapore-based company Megaspeed, whom US authorities investigated and concluded was a Chinese intelligence asset.
Photo: AFP
“The so-called Chinese spy narrative is purely a groundless accusation, slander and a smear,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) told reporters in Beijing.
Megaspeed did not respond immediately to a request for comment yesterday, a public holiday in Singapore.
Huang Le did not respond to the New York Times last month when it first reported her relationship with Jensen Huang, and Reuters could not determine her location to seek comment yesterday.
The investigation, announced on Sunday, has put a spotlight on Jensen Huang’s future given Nvidia’s status as the world’s most valuable chipmaker and the CEO’s role as the most prolific salesman of the AI boom.
The leather-jacketed CEO enjoys rock-star status worldwide, particularly in Taiwan, where he was born and often mingles freely with fans, taking selfies and signing autographs for his devoted followers.
He is Nvidia’s fifth-largest shareholder with a roughly 3.6 percent stake, according to LSEG data, and keeps a tight grip on the company through an unusually flat structure in which dozens of executives report directly to him.
However, unlike Meta Platforms or SpaceX, Nvidia has no dual-class shares that would give its cofounder majority voting control.
Yorkville Ives technology analyst Dan Ives said word of the probe is “a black eye moment” for Jensen Huang.
Ives predicted it would at the very least spark multiple congressional inquiries and “create an overhang on the stock for a myriad of reasons.”
“This will also increase major scrutiny regarding selling chips to China, which remains a key battleground issue in” Washington, he said in a statement.
The fallout of the probe extended to South Korea, where Madison Huang (黃敏珊), Jensen Huang’s daughter and an Nvidia executive, canceled a planned visit to Seoul for an Nvidia conference that was set to begin yesterday, according to companies she had been scheduled to meet.
Nvidia’s shares tumbled nearly 5 percent in US premarket trading, extending last week’s sell-off and pushing the stock to fresh multimonth lows. At the current levels, the chipmaker would lose about US$250 billion in value from its last closing price.
“The market’s probably telling you now this does no favors to the stock whatsoever in a time when there’s a lot of conjecture as to the buildout of data centers,” said Chris Weston, head of research at brokerage Pepperstone in Melbourne.
However, Weston said he did not think Jensen Huang, whom he described as the “godfather of AI,” would be replaced.
“If we genuinely thought he was going to step down ... the stock would be down — it would be an absolute bloodbath, to be honest,” he said.
Nvidia said its board has confidence in Jensen Huang. Some analysts said he has no natural successor within the company in case he decides to step down.
George Chen (陳澍), partner and chair of digital practice at The Asia Group, said that “it would be premature to conclude that Jensen poses a threat to US national security before the facts are fully established.”
“Once you become famous, you will naturally become a target,” he said. “The key questions are whether he was aware of any espionage activities and whether any confidential or strategically sensitive information was compromised.”
US President Donald Trump on Sunday said he had not spoken to Jensen Huang about the allegations, but called him a fine person.
When asked if he believed he should have acted on intelligence when he was briefed about it, Trump said: “No, I don’t think so. I think he’s an honorable guy. I think he probably has an excuse for it. You have to hear it.”
The New York Times reported that Trump was briefed about the intelligence findings about a year ago and chose not to do anything with the information.
Additional reporting by AFP
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