In brief: Jensen Huang abruptly resigned as head of Nvidia after admitting to an extramarital affair with an alleged Chinese spy whose firm is believed to have diverted banned Nvidia chips to China. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick bears much of the responsibility, the argument goes, because he never allowed Biden-era export controls to take effect and effectively outsourced chip-diversion vetting to the private sector. Megaspeed, the company that employed the alleged spy, is reported to have smuggled $7 billion of Nvidia chips into China, while Taiwanese customs data suggests over $60 billion in A.I. chips flowed to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand in 2025–2026.
Key questions
Why did Jensen Huang resign from Nvidia?
Huang resigned after admitting to an extramarital affair with a woman suspected of working for China’s intelligence apparatus whose firm is believed to be diverting banned Nvidia chips to China.
What did Howard Lutnick do with Biden’s chip export controls?
Lutnick never allowed the January 2025 Biden-era export controls to take effect, and in May of that year Commerce announced it would not enforce them, later outsourcing diversion-risk vetting to private companies such as Nvidia and Supermicro.
How much in Nvidia chips did Megaspeed allegedly smuggle to China?
Megaspeed is reported to have successfully smuggled $7 billion worth of Nvidia chips into China.
Source: The New York Times — Howard Lutnick Has Got to Go. Also reported by Fortune, Business Insider, Breitbart News Network.
AI-assisted summary; the reporting is the source's. Read the original at the link.
Nvidia, Howard Lutnick, Jensen Huang, chip export controls, Megaspeed
