Dem
55
Ties
1
GOP
44
After all the Republicans from Donald Trump on down who have committed sexual assault (e.g., Madison Cawthorn, Mark Foley, Matt Gaetz, Tony Gonzales, Dennis Hastert, Cory Mills, Roy Moore, etc.) it is at least a little bit refreshing that the latest sex scandal was fully, completely, and totally between very consenting adults.
We are referring, of course, to Jensen Huang, the CEO of the company, Nvidia, that makes the chips that AI runs on, who is also a close friend and adviser to Donald Trump. Last week, the news broke that Huang was sleeping with a beautiful Chinese spy, Alice Huang (whose real name is Huang Le, and who is no relation to Jensen). Not only was it consensual, it was her game plan. Mata Hari would have been proud of her. Here is The New York Post's take on the affair:
Jensen Huang is not an elected politician, of course, but he is buddy-buddy with Donald Trump and his key adviser on AI and trade. In addition, the issue of whether the U.S. government should allow Nvidia to export its best AI chips to China is a matter of deep national security. This decision should involve the president, Congress, and the board of Nvidia. It should not be based on how many personal favors Alice grants Jensen.
Alice Huang was a former executive at a company called Megaspeed International. It was originally Chinese but registered in Singapore to get around a porous U.S. ban on selling high tech products to Chinese companies. Some reports say Ms. Huang still runs the company. It operates a cloud service that allows other companies to run AI software without having to buy the chips. The New York Times has reported that the Chinese government recruited Alice to seek information and influence his views about selling advanced chips to China. Trade secrets would be nice, too. Megaspeed's balance sheet shot up from $33 million in Dec. 2023 to nearly $3 billion a year later, with no explanation. Many people suspect that the new money came from the Chinese government, which is almost certainly in bed with Alice (but not at the same time as Jensen).
Nvidia's board has hired the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate the situation. Of course, Huang #1 is never going to tell the lawyers the whole truth about his affair. Huang #2 is probably back in Singapore or China now and will surely decline any invitations to speak with the lawyers, assuming they can even find her. The Nvidia board has historically given Huang whatever he wanted, no questions asked, as long as the stock price kept rising—which it suddenly has ceased doing. The problem is that Huang ran the company single-handedly. There are 60 people who report directly to him. There is no #2 who could quickly step up and take over if the board fired Huang. This is a terrible way to run a company, but this is how Nvidia is organized.
As an aside, yesterday the Times reported that Huang also had an affair with (at least) one executive who reports to him. She is the 48-year-old Kimberly Powell, vice president of health care at the company. She is married to someone other than Huang. You know the old saying, if you see one cockroach, there are probably more of them. While Nvidia doesn't have a formal policy banning intimate relationships between employees, if Huang coerced Powell into the relationship in any way, that could be the last straw for the board. If it was truly consensual, he might skate on this one. The obvious question now, though, is: Who else?
Naturally Democrats see the affair with Alice Huang as a national security threat. So do Republicans, or at least they claim to. Outgoing chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Brian Mast (R-FL), the House Select Committee on Intelligence Rick Crawford (R-AR) and the House Select Committee on China John Moolenaar (R-MI) are "requesting" that Jensen Huang appear before their committees via video on Nov. 18 to answer a couple of questions. The Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Kevin Cramer (R-ND), has called on Huang to resign, because he is a national security risk.
Moolenaar said that Nvidia has "credibility issues" that warrant further scrutiny. This could lead to a further investigation of Nvidia and potentially legislation banning the export of advanced AI chips to hostile countries, including China. Given the need for funding the government by Dec. 11, there is no chance a bill could pass by Jan. 3, but Democrats will have no problem picking up the ball and running with it in January. Export controls fall under the jurisdiction of the Senate Banking Committee, which will soon be chaired by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who is no fan of China or the tech industry. This is going to be a bipartisan pile-on
Now here comes the political part. The Trump administration has been divided on its approach to China, especially on the export of AI chips. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is against selling them to China while former AI "czar" David Sacks was for it. This little incident severely compromises the credibility of Huang in these internal discussions. Donald Trump is always in favor of companies making money—as long as he gets a cut of it. Maybe Huang could smooth the path over by donating a nice chunk of Nvidia stock to Trump or his "presidential" library/hotel/condo complex. U.S. intelligence found out about Huang's long-running affair as early as 2025, in no small part because Jensen was either very sloppy or very arrogant. He was repeatedly photographed with Alice at public events as far back as 2023. He apparently didn't take Adultery 101 in college, where the first thing you learn is if you are going to have an affair, do it only with someone who has as much to lose as you do if it comes out. The U.S. intelligence agencies told Trump and Rubio about the affair early on, but Trump continued to keep the Nvidia CEO as a trusted adviser on technology and trade. Huang was with Sacks in the internal battles, a strong supporter of allowing U.S. companies to sell advanced technology to China as long as they got a good price.
This incident is going to open a whole new line of inquiry for the Democrats in January. They are going to want to know what Trump knew, when he knew it, and why he disregarded a critical national security warning from his own intelligence agencies. Did he rely entirely on the advice of a highly compromised adviser? Axios has a scoop that Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick was also informed about Huang's affair with the spy and also did nothing—even though he is the one who is charge with keeping sensitive technology out of the hands of America's enemies. So Trump knew, Rubio knew, and Lutnick knew. Did FBI Director Kash Patel know? If so, did he take any action? If he didn't know, maybe he should have spent more time in his office in D.C. doing his job and less time flying back and forth to his girlfriend in Tennessee in government planes. Who else knew and did nothing? Democrats will have a field day with this in January.
This gets even more complicated if Rubio resigns shortly (maybe even this week), especially if he claims he is resigning because Trump refused to listen to him about Huang and Nvidia and he wanted to protect national security and Trump didn't. Rubio needs to put some distance between himself and Trump to escape the taint of his support for the war in Iran, and this changes the narrative to a different subject, and one where Rubio can be on "right side." Also, with the defeat of 40 of the 41 ballot measures about data centers last week, this could give Rubio the opportunity to spin it as his being against AI somehow. He could put it as "I am against developing more AI in the U.S. and I am also against developing more AI in China." Focusing his presidential campaign on opposing AI rather than supporting the war in Iran would probably be a better strategy. Rubio has no principles at all, and if that looks like a promising path, he'll be happy to follow it. (V)