Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang are facing a shareholder lawsuit over his affair with an alleged Chinese intelligence agent as President Donald Trump confirms the FBI is investigating the matter, raising fresh national security concerns surrounding the artificial intelligence chip giant.
The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in San Jose, California, accuses Nvidia and Huang of misleading investors by failing to disclose his alleged relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed International, and the potential risks it posed to the company’s reputation and business.
The New York Times previously reported that U.S. intelligence officials had identified Alice Huang, who is not related to the Nvidia CEO, as a Chinese intelligence asset. Beijing has denied the allegations.
Trump confirmed Monday that the FBI was looking into the matter but defended Jensen Huang, calling him a “very honorable man.”
“I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he’ll be in good shape,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
The president said he had spoken with Huang, who told him he had “absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy.”
Huang has publicly acknowledged being unfaithful to his wife and apologized in a letter to Nvidia employees, pledging to cooperate with the investigation.
“I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America’s national security,” Huang wrote.
Nvidia announced Sunday that it was conducting an independent investigation into reports that its CEO had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation.
The controversy has intensified scrutiny of the company’s role in the global AI race, particularly as Washington seeks to prevent China from gaining access to advanced American semiconductor technology.
Nvidia shares fell 4.3% Monday, wiping approximately $190 billion from the company’s market capitalization. The shareholder lawsuit was filed shortly after markets closed.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
The espionage "honeytrap" is the oldest spy trick in the book. How embarrassing that the brilliant Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, apparently fell for this Hollywood movie cliché.
Huang has been a front-line warrior in America’s race to stay ahead of China in AI. How the heck did he slip up? Huang has admitted to having an affair with an unrelated Chinese business executive, Alice Huang. Huang has apologized to his family and employees. Nvidia is investigating.
According to the Financial Times, Alice Huang boasted to investors about her ability to secure Nvidia chips, likely on the black market, for use in non-American data center projects in Southeast Asia. Huang’s former company, Megaspeed, is being investigated for allegedly smuggling Nvidia "chips" called GPUs.
"You deserve better from me," Huang said to Nvidia employees and shareholders in a press release on Sunday. No kidding.
Frankly, Huang owes America an apology. Here’s why.A Chinese assault on Nvidia is scary for Americans because Nvidia holds as much as an 80% market share of the world’s most advanced data center AI chips. Nvidia is the "go-to choice for all the biggest AI software developers," as explained by Yahoo Finance.
The carelessness is unfathomable. Can you imagine if the CEO of a top U.S. defense company was caught in a close relationship with a suspected Chinese operative? One has to wonder: Does Huang not realize that Nvidia has made him a major national security player and, therefore, a target for espionage?
The U.S. intelligence community certainly had its eyes on Nvidia’s CEO. As reported by The New York Times, it turns out U.S. intelligence agencies suspected Alice Huang was a Chinese recruit. The Times also reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio alerted other officials months ago to the possible shenanigans.
This is an excerpt from an opinion piece from Dr. Rebecca Grant, vice president of the Lexington Institute.
A retired FBI supervisory special agent is warning that even the tightest security surrounding America’s advanced AI technology may offer little protection against foreign intelligence operations targeting corporate executives through personal relationships.
“If this was a honey trap, here’s the risk: You can lock up the chips tighter than a bank vault, but you can’t put a padlock on a dinner conversation,” Jason Pack told Fox News Digital.
Pack’s warning comes as the FBI investigates reports that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was targeted by an alleged Chinese intelligence operation involving a woman with whom he acknowledged having an affair. China has denied the espionage allegations.
A “honey trap” involves cultivating a romantic or personal relationship to gain access to sensitive information or influence decisions.
Pack emphasized that investigators must still establish whether such a scheme occurred, including whether confidential information was shared or business decisions were influenced.
The potential stakes extend beyond Nvidia, whose advanced semiconductors power artificial intelligence systems central to the growing technological rivalry between the United States and China.
Information about future chip designs, customers, supply chains or U.S. export restrictions could provide valuable intelligence to Beijing, Pack warned.
Nvidia’s board has launched its own investigation but said it has “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised.”
{{#rendered}}China’s trade surplus surpassed $1 trillion in the first 10 months of 2026 as surging global demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure fueled exports of semiconductors and other high-tech products, according to government data released Tuesday.
The country’s trade surplus reached $1.04 trillion through October, crossing the $1 trillion threshold a month earlier than last year. Exports jumped 35.2% in October compared with a year earlier, beating economists’ expectations.
AI-related technology has emerged as a major driver of China’s export growth, with semiconductor shipments soaring 111.1% in value during the first 10 months of the year. Overall high-tech exports climbed 47.9%.
The export boom has helped offset sluggish domestic spending and a prolonged property market downturn, but analysts warn China’s growing dependence on overseas markets could intensify trade tensions.
“The risk of additional tariffs and other trade barriers will remain elevated in 2027,” Joe Peissel, lead macroeconomist at Trivium China, told Reuters.
The figures come ahead of an expected meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, following a two-month extension of the U.S.-China trade truce.
Despite recent volatility in AI-related stocks, analysts expect demand for Chinese technology exports to remain strong.
“AI-related trade is expected to remain strong in the months ahead despite recent equity market volatility,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Nvidia-backed Fireworks AI is notifying customers of a security breach that exposed account and billing information, with some customers also having sensitive datasets, stored secrets and incomplete AI models accessed by hackers.
The AI infrastructure company disclosed Monday that its investigation into an October cyberattack uncovered a broader impact than initially reported, when only stored secrets — such as digital credentials used to access software and services — were known to have been compromised.
Fireworks said evidence links the intrusion to a financially motivated cybercriminal group engaged in “LLMJacking,” a scheme involving stolen access to large language models that can be resold through illicit gateways.
The company also reported a separate security incident involving a third-party cloud provider on Oct. 23. Hackers subsequently accessed Fireworks development machines and ran an unauthorized workload, causing additional customer data exposure.
Fireworks said payment card numbers were not affected and that it has found no evidence of further successful unauthorized access to its customer platform since Oct. 25.
The company has notified law enforcement and enlisted Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 cybersecurity team to investigate. It has also tightened security controls and temporarily disabled certain dataset uploads and downloads.
Fireworks said its investigation remains ongoing and that it is notifying affected customers with details about their exposure and recommended security measures.
Australia plans to require artificial intelligence companies to report security breaches and establish a federal AI regulator after an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a government health website.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Tuesday that his government accepted all recommendations from a review of the incident, which involved an OpenAI agent accessing a Medicare medical statistics portal while researching public health spending.
OpenAI said the breach was unintentional and that its investigation found no evidence patient records were accessed.
“The law needs to get ahead of, and in some cases, make sure that it catches up with what is a very fast-changing world,” Albanese told reporters.
The proposed rules would mandate reporting of AI security incidents and unintended AI behavior, while a new regulator would oversee safety controls, assess risks and independently evaluate AI models. The government is also considering criminal law reforms for serious misconduct.
“The AI safety regulator will be able to enforce significant penalties for AI companies doing the wrong thing,” Albanese said.
The legislation is expected to be introduced next year amid tensions between Australia and U.S. tech companies over AI oversight and copyright protections.
Australia previously rejected requests from OpenAI and Anthropic for exemptions from copyright laws governing AI training. Both companies have since expressed support for mandatory reporting of security breaches involving AI agents.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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