Nvidia’s board of directors announced Tuesday that it has hired a prominent former prosecutor and a top Wall Street law firm to probe the events surrounding CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with a woman believed to be a spy for China.
“The independent members of the NVIDIA Board have retained former acting U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York Joon H. Kim and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct a thorough and independent investigation as was announced on Sunday,” the company said in a statement.
The announcement followed revelations over the weekend that included Huang’s admission that had an extramarital affair. The woman with whom Huang had the affair is widely believed to be Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and business executive.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Huang spied for the Chinese government, sources told NBC News.
The hiring of Kim and his law firm raises the stakes significantly for Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993. Many of Nvidia’s board members have worked alongside Huang for decades and become wealthier with him.
But Tuesday’s announcement signaled that Nvidia’s board does not intend its probe to serve as a rubber stamp for Huang’s actions.
Wachtell Lipton is one of the nation’s most influential law firms, and its attorneys have track records of taking on corporate titans. As Wall Street’s top cop, Kim battled mob bosses and billion-dollar hedge funds in the U.S. Attorney’s office.
As of Tuesday, Jensen Huang remained in his post as Nvidia’s CEO, and a spokesperson for the company told NBC News over the weekend that he was focused on leading the trillion-dollar AI chip giant “without interruption.”
President Donald Trump said Monday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was also probing the events.
Trump said Huang “had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy,” adding, “I really believe him.”
The recent developments have caused Nvidia shares to sell-off by more than 10% since trading opened on Monday morning. The move has erased almost $500 billion of value from the $4 trillion company in just two days.
The sell-off was the latest blow in a weeks long decline for Nvidia stock already underway. After hitting its last record high on October 6, shares in the chip designer have plunged by 31%.
That drop has erased more than $1.7 trillion in market value.
Adding to the downward pressure on Nvidia shares Tuesday was new reporting from The New York Times that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had twice warned Trump about Huang’s entanglement with Chinese intelligence.
“Trump was told aboard Air Force One in May en route to China that the United States had obtained sensitive intelligence showing that Nvidia’s chief executive was in a relationship with a woman believed to be a Chinese spy,” the Times reported.
NBC News has not confirmed the report and has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Rubio’s warning to Trump reportedly came shortly before Huang joined Trump aboard Air Force One during a pitstop in Alaska on its way to Beijing, where Trump was making a state visit.
Huang had not been among the White House’s initial list of business leaders invited on the trip, according to reports at the time.
But Trump denied this, writing on social media May 12 that Huang would be joining him on the state visit.
“Jensen is currently on Air Force One,” Trump posted, mid-flight.
On Monday, Trump was asked if he had been briefed about Huang before that trip.
“I didn’t hear about it then,” Trump claimed. Pressed a second time about when he became aware of Huang’s relationship with the alleged spy, Trump said he would “have to check.”
“They could have been mentioned,” he said. “Certainly, it didn’t make much of an impact on me.”
“He’s an amazing guy,” Trump said of Huang, “I hope there’s no problem.”
“If there is a problem, we’ll let you know about it,” the president continued, “but I hope there’s no problem.”
