Trump ignored intel on China’s Nvidia spy to protect company’s stock, report says

Citing people briefed on classified intelligence, The New York Times reports that President Trump was told about a year ago that Beijing was getting reports from someone with direct access to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. That person is identified as Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and former top executive at the Singapore cloud company Megaspeed. Sources say Trump chose not to act, partly over fears for Nvidia's chip sales and the US-China trade truce.

Nvidia chips are the core resource of the AI economy. Who gets them, and who has the ear of the man who sells them, is a national security question.

We need to be careful here. This is anonymous-source reporting about classified intelligence, relayed by Ars Technica from the Times. The sources could not say what information may have reached Beijing. Nvidia denies any access to trade secrets, the Chinese Embassy calls the accusations baseless smears, and Alice Huang is not related to Jensen Huang. Nothing here shows wrongdoing by Nvidia's CEO.

Even so, several details are serious. Jensen Huang reportedly never got the defensive briefing that Americans who are targets of foreign spying sometimes receive. The government has been investigating Megaspeed since 2024 and found what looked like Nvidia equipment boxed for shipment rather than installed. The Justice Department took over the case from Commerce this year. Megaspeed also arranged a purchase of $2 billion in chips, and the US worried those chips could reach China.

What worries me most is the pattern the reporting describes. Sources say some China and Nvidia investigations and proposed sanctions have stalled at Commerce because of Huang's influence. Export controls have been loosened, and a deal gives the government a 25 percent cut of some chip sales. When one company's market value starts steering counterintelligence decisions, the line between industrial policy and corporate protection has been crossed.

We are not against selling American chips abroad. Broad access to AI compute can be good for the world and for US companies. But export rules only work if they are enforced without fear or favor. If they bend whenever a stock price is at stake, adversaries learn that getting close to the right executive works better than any smuggling network. If that becomes normal, the controls exist on paper only.

Our read: Congress and the inspectors general should find out who decided what, and why. Nvidia should explain in detail how it vets customers like Megaspeed.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month that the president is completely aligned with Jensen Huang, ahead of AI talks with Xi Jinping. The Times earlier reported that Megaspeed may supply chips to large data centers in Malaysia and Indonesia that appear to remotely serve customers in China. Nvidia says its own investigation found no signs of diversion, while a former Biden administration official told the Times the company raised many red flags.