U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on November 9, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Mandel Gunn | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump said: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang denied on Monday that he had no knowledge that the woman he admitted to having an affair with was a Chinese spy.
President Trump told reporters at the White House that he was “surprised” by the allegations against Huang and said Nvidia’s board had launched an independent investigation.
President Trump suggested that he had only recently learned of allegations that Megaspeed International executive Alice Huang was a Chinese spy.
“I didn’t hear about it at the time, but a lot of people heard about it, and Mr. Jensen completely denies it,” Trump said.
“I asked him today because I talked to him just to make sure he was OK. ‘How are you doing?'” Trump said.
“And I asked him about it, and he said… he had no idea that the person in question was a spy,” the president said. “I asked him that question: ‘Did you have any idea that she was a spy?’ He said, ‘I had no idea she was a spy.’ ”
“I believe in him wholeheartedly,” Trump said.
On October 29, the New York Times reported that Alice Huang was on the radar of US spy agencies for “possibly directing Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to China,” and that “US authorities have concluded that she is a Chinese intelligence agent and is passing information to Beijing.”
The Times reported that about a year ago, President Trump was briefed on the intelligence community’s findings and “chose to do nothing about the information.” The paper noted that President Trump is reluctant to block Nbudia’s chip sales, which are boosting the U.S. stock market.
On Friday, the Times reported that a memo circulated among Trump administration policymakers last spring “cited information that a Chinese businessman with close ties to Nvidia’s chief executive was a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security.”
The memo reported that Alice Huang had been recruited to gather information about Nvidia’s CEO “as part of an effort by Beijing’s top spy agency to learn more about U.S. AI chips and potentially influence the company to provide cutting-edge chips to China,” the paper said.
“I’ve been reading a little bit about this, and it wasn’t that long ago,” Trump said Monday. “We’ll look into it. I know the FBI is looking at it from a different perspective, and I think he’s in good condition.”
“He’s in a lot of pain,” President Trump said of Jensen Huang on Monday.
“I think he’s suffering a lot. I read his statement and I think he’s suffering even more because of his family, his loving wife, his family. But he’s definitely suffering.”
Asked whether he would raise the issue of Mr. Huang with Chinese President Xi Jingping when the two leaders meet next week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference in Shenzhen, China, President Trump said, “I don’t think so.”
“So President Xi will probably ask me about this,” Trump said. “I know Jensen very well. I think he’s a very honorable, honorable man. I mean… he’s built a great company, an American company. And I think he’s a very honorable man. And I’m very confident he’s going to be in good hands.”
