Trump ignored intel on China’s Nvidia spy to protect company’s stock, report says
Spy accused of exploiting Trump ties to Huang, funneling secrets to China.
Spy accused of exploiting Trump ties to Huang, funneling secrets to China.
The short version
- Donald Trump apparently is so aligned with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang—who has become the president’s key advisor on AI —that he ignored intelligence indicating that Huang was the target of a “Chinese spy plot,” and did so partly to protect Nvidia’s stock.
- That “someone” was Alice Huang, or Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and former top executive at a Singapore cloud company called Megaspeed.
- At least partly due to fears that US action against the alleged spying could hobble Nvidia chip sales or disrupt the delicate US-China trade truce, Trump “chose not to do anything with the information,” sources said.
What happened
Soon after US scrutiny increased, Alice Huang’s name was removed from Megaspeed corporate documents. At this stage, it’s unclear “how closely she is still connected to Megaspeed,” NYT reported.
Why it matters
Liu Chang, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, told NYT that the US accusations against Alice Huang are baseless.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.