Nvidia’s board opened an independent investigation into whether CEO Jensen Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation after he admitted to employees that he had been unfaithful to his wife. In an email to staff on Sunday, Huang wrote, “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did,” and pledged to cooperate with the review. The admission reverses his earlier public statements describing his interactions with former Megaspeed executive Alice Huang as “completely normal and not unusual.” A committee of independent directors and outside counsel will oversee the inquiry while Huang remains CEO, with the board stating it has no reason to believe company secrets or US national security were compromised.

US intelligence agencies assessed that China’s Ministry of State Security recruited Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, to gather information on American AI chips and potentially influence Nvidia to push for looser export controls, the New York Times and Financial Times reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw the drafting of a highly classified memo last spring warning senior administration officials about the relationship before President Donald Trump’s May trip to China. Megaspeed, a Singapore data center customer of Nvidia, has also faced US scrutiny over whether its regional purchases helped Chinese firms including Alibaba bypass chip restrictions.