From Megaspeed probes to resignation: how warnings about Nvidia sat for a year

TechCrunch assembled the scandal in sequence, from October 2025 investigations into Singapore-based Megaspeed through Thursday’s resignation. Seen in order, it didn’t come out of nowhere in a week. The stakes go beyond one executive: Megaspeed reportedly bought $4.8 billion in Nvidia chips over two years, and a related Chinese company reportedly facilitated $7.5 billion in purchases, including banned chips, per The Information. Those are export-control questions at the center of the U.S.-China AI race. Our earlier timeline reached the same conclusion: warnings landed at Nvidia’s customer gate long before the headlines.

In October 2025 the U.S. and Singapore were both investigating Megaspeed over possible export violations. A Commerce official had earlier found boxed Nvidia equipment at a Malaysian data center, raising concern it was being shipped onward. Around late 2025, the New York Times reports, the president was briefed on the relationship between Nvidia’s CEO and Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen not related to him, and did not act. By spring 2026 a secret memo drafted under Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned she was a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security. Huang had also reportedly hired a PR firm known for sex scandals a year earlier (coverage).

Nvidia’s public line stayed confident. A spokesperson said in 2025 that the company had no reason to believe products were diverted, and in October 2026 called the CEO’s interactions with her not unusual. Bloomberg reports Nvidia’s top lawyer contacted a Commerce under secretary during the 2025 probe. None of that proves wrongdoing by the company, but it raises the question of whether chip-industry customer vetting works when the customer has access at the very top.

The Times story landed in late October. Congressional chairs requested a briefing on November 5 (summons). On November 8 he admitted infidelity to employees, the same day the board opened an investigation (his memo). Speaking slots were withdrawn (ElevenLabs). On November 11 came a second reported affair with a direct report, a sharp stock drop, and the resignation accepted that day and disclosed Thursday (resignation).

Nvidia, the former CEO and Kimberly Powell, the vice president of health care named in the Times report, had not confirmed that second relationship. House China committee chair John Moolenaar has said a subpoena is likely if the former CEO doesn’t agree to a closed-door briefing (Congress).

The personal scandal was the trigger; the failure underneath is controls and attention. Export rules on advanced chips only work if the companies selling them and the governments enforcing them act on warning signs, and this timeline suggests both were slow. As AI hardware becomes strategic infrastructure, that lag is a risk that can’t be normalized, which is why the scandal is hardly over. More in our Nvidia coverage and cybersecurity coverage.