Latest. Two major investors have asked the board not to rush the succession, and to leave Huang’s return on the table. Brad Gerstner, chief executive of Altimeter Capital, posted a letter on X on Friday, co-signed by Gavin Baker of Atreides Management, urging the board to pursue a “slow, measured, and deliberate process regarding the future leadership of Nvidia” and saying Nvidia will be “capably led” by interim chief executive Colette Kress in the meantime, CNBC reported. The letter did not call for Huang’s immediate reinstatement, and CNBC reported no response from the board. The two firms disclosed about 2.13 billion dollars of Nvidia stock between them as of June 30: Altimeter held 9.4 million shares worth nearly 1.9 billion dollars, its largest disclosed equity holding, and Atreides held 1.2 million shares worth nearly 250 million dollars. Elon Musk said on X on Friday that he had signed a petition asking to reinstate Huang, and on Saturday that without Huang some “critical deals will be lost”; the petition claims more than 100,000 signatures, including more than 5,000 current Nvidia employees.
Latest. The succession search has its first named external approach, and the board is pushing back on the reporting. The Financial Times reported on Friday that Nvidia’s board has approached Arm Holdings chief executive Rene Haas, a former Nvidia executive who has led Arm since 2022, as one of several candidates, with no guarantee of an offer or acceptance, Reuters reported. Nvidia’s board told Reuters it is still selecting an executive search firm, had not formally engaged any potential candidates, and called speculation about individual candidates premature; Reuters could not independently verify the reports, and Arm declined to comment. Separately, Wired reported an internal Nvidia post urging the board to weigh employee sentiment drew more than 1,600 comments, several calling for Huang’s reinstatement. Nvidia shares fell a further 2 percent on Friday to 162.85 dollars, a sixth straight weekly decline.
Latest. Reuters reported on Friday evening that Huang misled several Nvidia leaders, including general counsel Tim Teter and chief marketing officer Alison Wagonfeld, about the nature of his relationship with Alice Huang, the former Megaspeed executive. In two October messages, Huang told them the interactions reflected standard business dealings with customers, according to two people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence Reuters reviewed; he gave a similar account in the autumn of 2025, when press queries first drew leaders’ attention to the relationship, and discussed suing the New York Times over its October 2025 article on his public meetings with her, though no suit or legal demand followed. Reuters said photos verified by the agency show the two together in the United States, China and elsewhere as far back as December 2023, and that it has not independently verified US suspicions that Alice Huang spied for China, which Beijing has denied. Nvidia and a representative for Huang declined to comment; Teter did not respond and Wagonfeld did not immediately respond.
Latest. The board has put the succession timetable back to the beginning. In a statement to CNBC on Friday, the board said it is still in the process of selecting a search firm for the chief executive role and has not formally engaged any potential candidate, internal or external, and that any speculation regarding individual candidates is premature. The statement follows a Financial Times report on Friday that the board has approached Arm chief executive Rene Haas, who spent seven years at Nvidia before joining the SoftBank-backed chip company in 2013; the board did not confirm that report. Interim chief executive Colette Kress held her first meeting with senior executives at the Santa Clara headquarters on Thursday afternoon, CNBC reported, and the shares fell more than 2 percent on Friday, taking Nvidia’s market value below 4 trillion dollars. No timeline for choosing a search firm or a permanent chief executive was given.
Latest. The Treasury Secretary has publicly blamed Commerce for the failure to blacklist Megaspeed. Scott Bessent told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday that Treasury, the Pentagon, the State Department and the United States Trade Representative’s Office had favoured adding Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the heart of the Nvidia scandal, to the Commerce Department’s entity list for months. “But Commerce has the pen,” Bessent said. “You will have to ask them about their internal processes.” The entity list is a trade blacklist of groups connected to China that United States officials say pose national security risks, and the Commerce Department did not immediately return Reuters’ request for comment. Bessent added that the administration was working to shut down leakage in the chip export system, and turned the question back on the chipmaker: “The real story here should be, did Nvidia know their client, and was there a robust effort at Nvidia to make sure that there was no leakage and that they were selling to what were obviously pass-through shell companies?” Asked whether Congress needed to step in on export controls, he said: “We have all the authorities that we need. They just need to be implemented.” Reuters reported on Thursday that senior White House officials are discussing whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should be pushed out; Lutnick has agreed to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on December 10.
Morning edition note, November 13. The morning brief re-verified the core facts against the primary source: Nvidia’s Form 8-K (accession 0001045810-26-000082, filed November 12) states the board accepted Huang’s resignation on November 11 as president, chief executive and board member effective immediately, appointed Colette Kress, 59, interim chief executive while she continues as chief financial officer, and appointed Harvey C. Jones, 73, a director since 1993, as chair. The resignation and interim appointment are confirmed by the filing; President Trump’s pitch of Apple executive chairman Tim Cook remains a proposal in a Truth Social post, not a board action, and no response from Cook or Apple has been reported. Nvidia closed Thursday at 166.19 dollars, down 4.34 percent, while Broadcom rose 5.54 percent and AMD about 6 percent in a rotation covered separately today.
Latest. Congress has put dates on its demands. Senate Banking Committee chairman Tim Scott on Thursday requested that Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appear at a public hearing on December 3, and said they would face subpoenas if they refuse, Al Jazeera reported with the Associated Press. Three House committees, Foreign Affairs, the China select committee and Intelligence, in a joint letter from chairs Brian Mast, John Moolenaar and Rick Crawford, asked Huang and Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter to appear for separate hearings on December 1 and 2, also under threat of subpoena, and Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler was summoned for December 3. The committees say the scandal raises national security concerns over the scrutiny of Nvidia’s exports of advanced chips to China and over the Commerce Department’s refusal to add dozens of Chinese companies to a trade blacklist; China on Friday warned that tighter United States semiconductor export rules would threaten global supply chains, and said Beijing has consistently opposed the abuse of export control measures. Neither Nvidia nor the Commerce Department gave Al Jazeera a statement.
Latest. Nvidia’s employees are pressing the board to reverse the resignation. An internal suggestion box post by a longtime engineer, written before Huang left and urging the board to formally gauge employee sentiment first, has drawn more than 1,600 comments, the majority urging directors to find a path for the 63-year-old co-founder to return, WIRED reported on Friday from internal correspondence it reviewed. One commenter wrote, “If you believe in the mission, bring back THE boss,” and another that Huang “needs a second chance”; one staffer sent a companywide email demanding clarity on the exit, and about two dozen employees backed Huang publicly on LinkedIn within hours of Colette Kress being named interim chief executive and Harvey Jones board chair, with WIRED finding no employee posts supporting the resignation. Staff had expected the board’s independent investigation to conclude before any permanent leadership change; Huang resigned as it got underway. Nvidia and Jones did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.
Latest. Megaspeed has broken its silence. In a statement posted on its website on Thursday, the Singapore cloud firm at the centre of the diversion allegations said it takes its compliance obligations under United States export control laws “extremely seriously,” that it cooperated with inspections by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security and “stands ready to cooperate fully with any other relevant US government authority,” Reuters reported. Its chief executive and chairman, James Tan Yong Pong, said Megaspeed has retained an American law firm to lead a “comprehensive census” of its graphics processing units and independently verify its export control compliance practices. The statement is the company’s first public word since the scandal erupted; Singapore said last month the firm remains under investigation there.
Latest. Reuters has put a scale on the China exposure behind the export control fight. A Reuters review of more than 150 Chinese procurement notices, investment plans, construction contracts and corporate disclosures identified projects and equipment agreements worth more than 23 billion yuan (3.2 billion dollars) built around Nvidia’s restricted H100, H200 and H800 processors, running from coastal technology hubs to local government-backed ventures, universities and regional computing centres, and including a facility in Gansu province in the northwest that was expected to install thousands of Nvidia chips before the end of the year, though Reuters could not establish whether the processors arrived. The tally includes planned investments and signed contracts as well as completed installations, and covers buildings, power systems and other infrastructure, not spending on Nvidia chips alone. Reuters established no link between the projects it identified and Megaspeed, and noted there has been no public finding that Huang violated export control laws; Nvidia and China’s commerce ministry did not immediately respond to its requests for comment. The finding sits against Nvidia’s own account that export controls have effectively shut it out of China’s data centre market: Huang, a vocal advocate of easing the restrictions, said last year the company’s China market share had fallen from 95 percent to zero, while an IDC estimate cited by Reuters in October put Nvidia at 34 percent of Chinese AI accelerator shipments in the first half of 2026, figures Reuters noted measure different things.
Latest. Malaysia has opened its own Megaspeed inquiry, and the firm’s Australian unit has no visible presence at its listed address. Malaysia said on Friday it was investigating a subsidiary of Megaspeed International over the possible diversion of advanced AI chips to other countries, the Guardian reported; the subsidiary was not named, and the report carries no Malaysian official document. The Guardian’s own reporting visited the Sydney office address listed for Megaspeed Australia and found no signage, mailbox or other sign of the company, and no one there who had heard of it or of its listed director. Filings with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show the Australian unit was registered in 2024, that its sole director is Kai Kang, a Shanghai-born 29-year-old who is also a registered director of Megaspeed’s Malaysian, Indonesian and Thai units, and that Megaspeed International owns all 10,000 of its shares, for which it paid 1 million dollars. Reuters, in reporting carried by the Guardian, visited the home address on the filings in Seymour, Victoria, where a woman identifying herself as Kang’s mother said he is based in Shanghai and has no business in Australia; Kang has not been accused of any wrongdoing and could not be reached, Australia’s intelligence agency ASIO declined to comment on whether it is examining the unit, and Megaspeed International did not respond to the Guardian. The Guardian put Megaspeed’s purchases from Nvidia at nearly 5 billion dollars of AI chips and hardware over the past three years, and reported no new documentary proof of spying or chip diversion.
Latest. The selloff has reached China’s AI sector. Chinese artificial intelligence stocks fell on Friday as Nvidia’s leadership crisis heightened fears that Washington will tighten restrictions on China’s access to advanced computing, Investing.com reported. Hong Kong-listed Z.AI fell 10.88 percent and MiniMax fell 8.73 percent, Tencent fell 2.71 percent, Alibaba fell 2.35 percent and Kuaishou fell 3.91 percent, while the Hang Seng slipped 0.9 percent, the CSI 300 fell 0.1 percent and the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.2 percent. The concern is the remote access channel: United States rules restrict direct exports of the most advanced processors to China, but Chinese companies rent Nvidia-powered capacity through overseas data centres, and Reuters has reported Chinese developers and cloud providers moving to secure more of that capacity, including through Southeast Asian operators, before it can be restricted. The Huang controversy could build support for the Remote Access Security Act, which would give the Commerce Department authority over that channel. Domestic chipmakers moved the other way earlier in the week on the substitution trade: SMIC gained 2.4 percent in Shanghai and 1.7 percent in Hong Kong, Hua Hong rose 2.7 percent, NAURA advanced 3.1 percent, and Cambricon surged more than 11 percent with Moore Threads up around 7 percent in Thursday’s session.
Latest. The selloff has become the longest in more than a decade. Nvidia shares fell 4.3 percent on Thursday, bringing the loss for the week to 11 percent as of Thursday’s close, and are headed for a sixth straight weekly decline, the longest losing streak since 2012, CNBC reported. The shares have lost 29 percent of their value over that six-week stretch and roughly $1.6 trillion in market value since the slide began in early October, and Nvidia has fallen below Apple after spending most of the year as the world’s most valuable company. D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria cut his price target to $200 from $300 while maintaining a buy rating, saying he expects a challenging transition over the next few months and that the market has appropriately adjusted for it. Oppenheimer, in a note on Thursday, said fundamentals would take a backseat near term even with solid earnings expected, and that Huang’s departure could translate into a lingering share overhang. The next test comes on Tuesday, when Nvidia reports quarterly results and analysts project revenue up 91 percent year on year to $108.9 billion, according to LSEG figures cited by CNBC.
Latest. President Trump tried to keep Huang in the job. Trump called Huang on Tuesday, November 10, while Huang was still chief executive, and urged him to fight for his job, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing two people briefed on the conversation, in a report carried by Reuters. Huang resigned on Thursday. The account is second-hand reporting of the Times story, carries no quotation from either man and no response from Trump, Huang or Nvidia, and it sits alongside Trump’s later public backing of Apple executive chairman Tim Cook as a successor, reported earlier in this story.
Latest. The Senate Banking Committee has joined the congressional file. Chairman Tim Scott sent letters on Thursday to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and to Huang asking both to testify before his committee over recent developments at Nvidia, Reuters reported. Scott wrote on X that recent reports raise serious concerns about national security and the protection of sensitive United States technology, said he would consider subpoenaing Huang if he does not appear voluntarily, and said the American people deserve answers. A growing number of lawmakers have criticised Lutnick for the administration’s refusal to add dozens of Chinese companies to a key trade blacklist and over the government’s oversight of Nvidia’s exports to China, Reuters said; spokespeople for Huang and Lutnick could not immediately be reached. House Foreign Affairs chair Brian Mast also told reporters on Thursday that congressional staff spoke with Nvidia on Wednesday night about a date and location for Huang’s closed door briefing.
Latest. The Justice Department has not concluded that Alice Huang was a spy. Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press conference on Thursday that the department has not yet reached a conclusion on whether Alice Huang was working for the Chinese government, while confirming that the FBI is investigating the reports, Reuters reported. President Trump, asked on the Straight Shooter podcast whether Huang should have resigned, said it had not yet been determined whether she was a spy, that if she was a spy the answer would be yes and if she was not it might be different, and that he spoke to Huang on Wednesday. Beijing has denied that Alice Huang is a spy, and she could not be reached for comment. Nvidia shares closed on Thursday at $166.19, down 4.34 percent on the day, after the morning’s steeper fall, and were modestly higher in after hours trading.
Latest. The export approval fight has reached the Commerce Secretary’s job. Reuters reported, as carried by Yonhap on Friday Korea time, that senior White House officials have discussed the need to dismiss Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees export controls and led the push to approve Nvidia’s H200 sales to China, hours after other United States media, citing a senior White House official, reported that President Trump maintains full confidence in him. Yonhap also reported that Lutnick recently argued at the White House with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who pressed him on why Megaspeed, the Singapore company where Alice Huang once worked as an executive, had not been placed on the Commerce Department’s Entity List. The dismissal report rests on unnamed sources and had not been confirmed by the White House or the Commerce Department as of this update.
Latest. Congressional Democrats have opened their own investigation. In a letter dated November 12, Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative Richard Neal, the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, told Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick they are investigating what they call the administration’s scheme to approve and tax exports of Nvidia’s H200 chips to Chinese companies, and directed the Commerce Department to preserve all records on the Section 232 semiconductor investigation, on Nvidia’s export licence applications, and on the department’s communications about Nvidia and Huang. The letter says Trump allowed the H200 sales in December 2025 in exchange for a cut of the proceeds, collected as a 25 percent Section 232 tariff when the Taiwan-made chips entered the United States for security review, which the two lawmakers call an apparently unconstitutional export tax. It says the approval came after the president and Lutnick had reportedly been briefed that Alice Huang was a Chinese intelligence asset, that Commerce approved sales to Chinese cutout companies with no physical presence at their listed addresses, and that Commerce suspended a separate investigation into Megaspeed after outreach from Nvidia; it also asks whether Nvidia’s direction of at least 26 million dollars toward the president’s priorities, including the White House ballroom, influenced the approval. As minority ranking members, Wyden and Neal can request records but cannot compel them. The letter’s account rests on the press reports it cites, and neither Commerce nor Nvidia had publicly responded to it as of this update. Latest. Alice Huang was a part owner of a data centre that provided computing power to Huawei, Nvidia’s biggest competitor in China, CNBC reported on Thursday. Huang, under her Chinese name Huang Le, became a co-owner as early as 2016 of Shanghai Hexi, a financial firm that invests in technology and data centres. Hexi bought 27 percent of the developer Shanghai Century Longteng in 2021 and held it until 2024; Century Longteng controlled 50.1 percent of Shenzhen Yifeng Technology, whose Shenzhen data centre’s key customer was Huawei Cloud, and Hexi guaranteed the loans that financed the centre. Her husband Kang Wei, who founded Hexi, became a Century Longteng executive in 2022 and attended the signing of its Huawei agreement. The account rests on Chinese corporate records and media reports compiled by Tesari, a private intelligence firm that shared its research exclusively with CNBC; Tesari’s Brian Andersen, a former Homeland Security Investigations supervisor, said the activity warrants a national security and counterproliferation investigation. CNBC said it is not clear whether the Shenzhen centre acquired Nvidia GPUs, though its majority owner, Zhejiang Century Huatong Group, began purchasing the chips in 2023. Nvidia and Huawei did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment, Jensen Huang did not respond to a voicemail, and Alice Huang could not be reached. The reported link is an ownership chain, not employment by Huawei, and no authority has announced an investigation on it.
Latest. Huang had a third affair, with another Nvidia employee, Reuters reported on Thursday. The relationship had not been previously reported, and Reuters withheld the employee’s name. It is the third relationship to surface in a week, after Alice Huang and Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, and it widens the conduct record that preceded the board’s acceptance of his resignation.
Latest. The export control front has hardened in Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Thursday that a growing consensus in Congress favours tougher restrictions on AI chip sales to China, Reuters reported in an explainer, and a Senate version of the annual defence authorisation bill already includes several of the proposals lawmakers want to attach to it: the AI Overwatch Act, which would give Congress a larger role in reviewing export rule changes, the Chip Security Act, which would require chipmakers to track the location of advanced processors, and the Match Act, aimed at allied chipmaking equipment sales. A fourth proposal, the Remote Access Security Act, covering Chinese firms renting computing capacity from overseas data centres, passed the House in January and awaits Senate consideration. The explainer reports no new law, vote or rule announced on Thursday; Huang had been the industry’s most prominent voice for allowing more exports to China, and his departure removes that counterweight.
Latest. Washington’s investigations have widened. The Department of Justice has three separate inquiries involving Nvidia, Megaspeed and Super Micro, Semafor reported, citing two administration officials. One inquiry is focused specifically on Nvidia on antitrust grounds; the other two concern Megaspeed and Super Micro and have focused on the involvement of Alice Huang. Semafor reported no indication that prosecutors currently intend to bring criminal charges against Nvidia or Huang, and did not establish that Nvidia itself is implicated in the allegations involving Alice Huang. Super Micro Computer shares fell 10.5 percent on the report, Investing.com said, and Nvidia shares were down around 5 percent in the same trading.
Latest. The board has addressed the staff. In an internal email published by The Verge, board chair Harvey Jones told employees that Huang had resigned, that Kress would serve as interim chief executive while the board searches among internal and external candidates, and that he would serve as the first chair of the board, adding that the board has full confidence in Kress and that the company’s strength resides in its employees, leadership team, technical strength and partner ecosystem.
Latest. Huang has agreed to testify. House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast told reporters on Thursday that Huang agreed on Wednesday to testify behind closed doors by Thanksgiving, TechCrunch reported, citing Bloomberg and NBC News reports of Mast’s remarks. The agreement follows the November 4 letter from Mast, China select committee chair John Moolenaar and Intelligence Committee chair Rick Crawford requesting his appearance, and the chairs’ Wednesday statement that they would pursue a subpoena if he did not agree. Mast said he expects the briefing to be recorded on video and transcribed, and that Huang has “very serious questions to answer,” while noting his past disagreements with Huang on export controls.
Latest. The president has named his preferred successor, or joked about one. President Trump backed Apple executive chairman Tim Cook to replace Huang in a Truth Social post, Axios reported, calling Huang a legend and saying nothing about the allegations behind the departure. Axios noted it is unclear whether Trump meant the pitch as a joke. No response from Cook, Apple or Nvidia had been reported as of Thursday morning, and the board’s own search, led on an interim basis by Kress, remains the actual succession process.
Latest. The market has put an opening price on the departure. Nvidia shares fell 13.09 percent to open at $150.99 in New York on Thursday, against Wednesday’s close of $173.73, then recovered part of the fall to trade at $160.36, down 7.69 percent, in early trade, ANI reported. The opening print is the first regular session trading since the resignation was announced, and it sits between the roughly 10 percent morning fall and the six analyst downgrades CNBC reported earlier in the day.
Latest. Singapore has put its own investigation on the record. The Ministry of Home Affairs said on Thursday that the Singapore Police Force and Singapore Customs opened an independent investigation in February 2025 into several companies, including Megaspeed, over potential false declarations in the purchase of servers, and that Alice Huang was investigated in her capacity as Megaspeed’s then chief executive, chairperson and a key controller, not for espionage. Her passport was impounded on June 24, 2025, the same day a United States Bureau of Industry and Security post-shipment verification check at Megaspeed first alerted Singapore to the United States interest in her and the company. The ministry said server supplier Supermicro provided limited cooperation, that Singapore raised the issue with United States authorities on July 7, 2025 and repeated the request to the Department of Justice and the FBI several times from September 2025, and that it has received limited information or assistance to date. In February 2026 the police concluded there was insufficient evidence that Huang committed the declaration offences, but assessed that she had knowingly given inaccurate information to downplay her role in Megaspeed; she was issued a stern warning, barred from re-entering Singapore, given back her passport on February 26, 2026 and left the same day. Investigations into Megaspeed and six other individuals are ongoing, and Singapore has charged four individuals and four companies in related server cases since February 2025.
Latest. Nvidia has now filed the change with the SEC. Its Form 8-K, filed on Thursday, confirms that the board accepted Jen-Hsun Huang’s resignation as president, chief executive officer and board member on November 11, effective immediately, and appointed Colette Kress, 59, as interim chief executive officer while the board searches for a permanent chief executive. Kress, chief financial officer since 2013, continues in that role while serving as interim chief. The filing also confirms Harvey C. Jones, 73, a director since 1993, was appointed chair of the board on November 11. The filing is signed by Kress in her new capacity.
Latest. Huang is out. Nvidia announced on Thursday, in a press release issued after the board’s late Wednesday meeting, that Huang had resigned as chief executive, president and board member effective immediately, and that Colette Kress, the chief financial officer since 2013, will serve as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent successor among internal and external candidates, The Verge and Axios reported. The company also named Harvey C. Jones, the former Synopsys chief executive, as the first board chair in its history. The announcement carried no quote from Huang; Kress said the company’s strength comes from its people and that she is committed to building on the foundation Huang created over 33 years. The shares fell about 10 percent in Thursday morning trading, CNBC’s market data showed, after a premarket fall of about 5.4 percent, extending a week in which the stock had already fallen 7 percent. Six analysts downgraded the stock between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, CNBC reported, among them Melius, Evercore, William Blair, Oppenheimer, Bernstein and KeyBanc, several citing the absence of a succession plan. The resignation follows reports of two extramarital affairs, one with a woman United States intelligence believes is a Chinese spy and one with an Nvidia executive who reported to him; the underlying allegations remain reported claims, and the board has said it has no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised.
Latest. The board met late on Wednesday and had announced no decision by Thursday morning. Nvidia shares fell about 6.3 percent in early premarket trading on Thursday after dropping roughly 8 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported, and the stock has now lost more than $450 billion of market value since the company disclosed its investigation into Huang’s conduct on November 8. No Nvidia statement, denial or confirmation of the ouster reporting had appeared by Thursday morning, and no November filing with the SEC announced any change; the company’s last public word remains its November 8 board statement expressing confidence in Huang, and Huang remains chief executive. Bloomberg also reported the board is weighing whether to name a temporary chief while it searches for a permanent one. The spillover reached Asia, where Alibaba fell as much as 7.1 percent in Hong Kong, leading losses on the Hang Seng Tech Index, as investors weighed tighter United States scrutiny of Chinese cloud operators’ access to advanced chips; Alibaba rents Nvidia processors through Megaspeed and its United States listed shares fell about 5.7 percent.
Latest. Beijing has escalated its response. Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular briefing on Thursday that the United States should stop fabricating so-called spy narratives and using them as a pretext for imposing a technological blockade on China, Reuters reported. Mao said China’s scientific and technological progress is driven by independent innovation and open cooperation, and that China is willing to work with the United States to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state. Agence France-Presse reported the same briefing, in which Beijing dismissed the claims about spying on Huang as groundless speculation and an attempt to smear China. The statement is Beijing’s strongest framing yet of the Huang affair, moving from denying the espionage allegation to accusing Washington of using it to justify wider technology restrictions.
Latest. Taiwan’s government has put its own record on the file. Chiu Chui-cheng, minister of the Mainland Affairs Council, told parliament on Thursday that Alice Huang, the former Megaspeed executive at the centre of the espionage allegations, entered Taiwan eight times in 2024 and 2025, three times in 2024 and five times in 2025, on a Hong Kong passport under standard business visitor status, with no alert flags on her at the time and no entry recorded this year. Chiu said the council never received the warning the New York Times reported the United States gave Taiwan in 2024, and that Taiwan’s security agencies are investigating possible links with foreign intelligence. Agence France-Presse, which reported the testimony, noted that Beijing has rejected the espionage accusations; the claim that she worked for Chinese intelligence is a United States belief, not an established finding.
Latest. Attention has turned to succession, and no board decision has been announced. Reuters reported late on Wednesday that analysts and investors see two internal candidates as particularly likely, at least for the short term: Ian Buck, the engineer who helped create the CUDA software platform and leads Nvidia’s hyperscale AI products, and Colette Kress, the chief financial officer since 2013, whom Semafor reported some board members favour as interim chief executive. Arm chief executive Rene Haas and 32-year Nvidia veteran Jeff Fisher were also raised in the speculation. One portfolio manager, Armina Rosenberg of Minotaur Capital, suggested a co-chief structure pairing Kress on the business and finances with Buck on product and technology. Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment on the board meeting, and none of the named candidates is confirmed as chosen.
Latest. The congressional pressure named names on Wednesday. Senator Kevin Cramer, a Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, renewed his call for Huang to resign, arguing he is too vulnerable to blackmail to remain in the job, and Representatives Suhas Subramanyam, a Democrat, and Don Bacon, a Republican, also said Huang should step down. The chairs of the House Foreign Affairs, China select and Intelligence committees, Brian Mast, John Moolenaar and Rick Crawford, said on Wednesday afternoon that they had not yet heard from Huang on their November 4 request that he testify on November 18, that the deadline they set was that day, and that they would pursue a subpoena if he does not agree to appear. Lawmakers are also discussing tighter AI chip export controls in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jim Banks urged colleagues to include the AI Overwatch Act, one of three bills named in the discussions alongside the MATCH Act and the Chip Security Act, CNBC reported.
Latest. The selling reached index futures in evening trading. Nasdaq 100 futures were down 1 percent at 28,205.75 at 7:25 PM ET and S&P 500 futures were down 0.4 percent at 7,608.75, with Dow futures flat, Investing.com reported, and Al Jazeera put Nvidia’s after-hours fall at 8.6 percent. Neither report added a board decision, a meeting outcome or a named successor.
Nvidia’s board held urgent talks on Wednesday about the future of its founder and chief executive, Jensen Huang, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the board is preparing to oust him. The report, citing people familiar with the matter, followed a New York Times report earlier Wednesday that Huang had a romantic relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare and a direct report of his. Nvidia shares, which had closed up 2.87 percent at $173.73, fell about 8 percent in after-hours trading, trading at $160.15 by 6:42 PM ET. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the Journal’s report, and Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Powell relationship is the second to surface in a week. On Sunday Huang admitted to an affair with Alice Huang, an executive at an Nvidia customer, two days after the Financial Times first reported that relationship. US intelligence believes Alice Huang was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security, and President Trump said on Monday that the FBI is investigating. The board’s own investigation, which on Tuesday it said would be led by a former federal prosecutor it has hired, is examining whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. As recently as Sunday the board had backed Huang to remain as chief executive.
Washington is moving in parallel. Two House Republicans said on Wednesday that Congress is preparing to subpoena Huang over the spy allegations if he does not voluntarily accept a summons to a closed-door briefing, and senior members of both parties have called for congressional investigations. Huang has become an influential voice in the president’s circle on AI policy and export controls, which is what turns a personal conduct scandal into a national security file.
The market question is succession. The stock has lost more than $300 billion in market value since the first affair reports broke, according to Reuters, and analysts noted on Wednesday that Nvidia has no announced succession plan. Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson said an immediate removal would be challenging for that reason, and that investors would expect the board to act as soon as it has proof if Huang broke the law or violated company policy. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has led it throughout its rise to a market value of about $4 trillion.