Nvidia loses the CEO who argued China chip curbs backfired, as Congress pushes the AI Overwatch, Chip Security and MATCH bills and Commerce weighs a remote-access rule.
Jensen Huang resigned on November 12 as Nvidia’s president, chief executive and a member of its board, effective immediately, according to the company’s 8-K filing. Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer since 2013, becomes interim CEO and keeps the finance role until a permanent successor is chosen from internal and external candidates. Harvey C. Jones, a former chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys, becomes the company’s first board chair. The filing gives no reason for the departure; a person familiar with the matter told CNBC the board had decided the night before to oust him. Nvidia shares fell more than 13% at the open and closed 4.3% lower, CNBC reported.
The resignation comes four days after Huang admitted to an affair in a staff memo and the board opened an independent investigation into his relationship with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive whom U.S. officials reportedly suspect of working for Chinese intelligence. The New York Times first reported that U.S. officials believe she is an intelligence asset. No government has confirmed that claim on the record, and the board said it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. CNBC says Huang has denied compromising either, and that the board hired the law firm Wachtell Lipton for the review. The Times later reported a second relationship, with an Nvidia vice president, Al Jazeera noted.
Donald Trump is expected to meet Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC leaders’ summit in Shenzhen on November 18–19, and the scandal has revived pressure in Washington to tighten chip sales to China.
Beijing calls the spy story a pretext for technology curbs
China’s foreign ministry addressed the case again on November 12. Asked by the BBC whether the scandal could affect relations before the summit, spokesperson Mao Ning said China’s progress in science and technology "relies on independent innovation and open cooperation," according to the ministry’s transcript. Beijing’s foreign ministry urged Washington on November 12 to "stop fabricating the ‘Chinese spy’ narratives as a pretext for imposing technology restrictions." Mao added that the two sides keep close communication on leader-level contacts. Three days earlier, spokesperson Guo Jiakun had called the allegation unsubstantiated.
The allegation centers on China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), the country’s main intelligence agency. The Financial Times and The New York Times, citing sources, reported that U.S. intelligence believes the MSS recruited Alice Huang to gather information on Jensen Huang, according to CNBC’s MSS explainer. The two are not related. CNBC said it remains unclear whether any sensitive information was shared, and noted an FT report that the MSS had itself questioned a person who knows Alice Huang about her business.
A private firm ties Alice Huang’s businesses to Huawei’s cloud
A new thread links the affair to Nvidia’s largest Chinese rival. Tesari, a private intelligence firm, shared findings exclusively with CNBC that Alice Huang may have held stakes in businesses that served Huawei, CNBC reported. According to CNBC, a financial firm she co-owned, Shanghai Hexi, bought 27% of the data center developer Shanghai Century Longteng in 2021 and held it until 2024. Century Longteng controlled 50.1% of Shenzhen Yifeng Technology, a data center whose main customer was Huawei Cloud. CNBC said it is unclear whether that facility acquired Nvidia GPUs.
Megaspeed itself grew out of a 2019 sale. Alice Huang sold a cloud business to the gaming company 7Road, whose Singapore subsidiary was spun off as Megaspeed in 2023. The Information reported that Megaspeed helped facilitate at least US$7.5 billion in Nvidia chip shipments to Chinese companies, per CNBC. The Council on Foreign Relations notes that the Justice Department took over a Commerce Department probe into whether Megaspeed helped Chinese firms evade restrictions.
Tesari’s Brian Andersen, a former Homeland Security Investigations agent, said the links warrant "a national security and [technology] counterproliferation investigation." Nvidia and Huawei did not respond to CNBC, and Alice Huang could not be reached.
Congress and the Shenzhen meeting will test the H200 policy
Huang argued that U.S. export controls backfired by pushing Chinese firms to build their own AI, CFR notes. According to Al Jazeera, Trump approved H200 sales to China in December 2025 with a 25% tariff; Nvidia’s flagship Blackwell chips remain barred, CFR notes. Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reported Chinese orders for more than two million H200 chips, potentially worth US$54 billion, and stressed that these are orders, not completed sales.
Lawmakers now want that door narrowed. CNBC’s policy report says Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged passage of the AI Overwatch Act, the Chip Security Act and the MATCH Act, and House China committee chair John Moolenaar wants chip controls in the annual defense bill. David Meale of Eurasia Group said the scandal makes it "politically harder for negotiators to strip chip provisions out of this year’s NDAA." Teneo’s Gabriel Wildau said action on Chinese firms’ remote access to restricted chips "now appears likely." Asked whether Huang would join the delegation, Trump said, "I don’t know, but I’d certainly take him."
Nvidia still reports third-quarter results on November 17, and Representative Brian Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Huang has agreed to testify before Congress ahead of Thanksgiving, according to CNBC’s live coverage. The clearest signal will come in Shenzhen: whether chips appear on the Trump–Xi agenda, or whether Washington tightens access through Congress and Commerce instead.