Nvidia taps former acting US attorney to investigate CEO Jensen Huang

Nvidia has hired a former federal prosecutor and a Wall Street law firm to investigate CEO Jensen Huang, who is facing scrutiny for having an extramarital romantic relationship with an alleged Chinese spy.“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,” Nvidia said in a statement on Tuesday.Joon Kim is known for prosecuting members of the Mafia and hedge funds in the U.S. attorney’s office, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most influential law firms. Nvidia’s independent investigation concerns whether Huang had been the target of a foreign influence operation allegedly led by Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman and former executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed. U.S. officials reportedly suspect she has ties to the Chinese government.U.S. intelligence agencies believe Alice Huang may have been transmitting information to China while maintaining an intimate relationship with Nvidia’s chief executive. The U.S. government had already been investigating Megaspeed over suspicions that the company was illegally diverting Nvidia chips to China, the New York Times reported.Nvidia’s board has said that while it “has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised,” it will investigate the matter.The artificial intelligence company, responsible for designing the world’s most advanced graphics processing units, was affected financially by the news this week.After Huang admitted to the affair on Sunday, Nvidia shares quickly dropped when the U.S. stock market opened a day later.WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT JENSEN HUANG AND THE NVIDIA SPY PLOTPresident Donald Trump has been sympathetic toward Huang since the affair was made public, saying he believed the executive was “suffering greatly.” Trump also said he believes Huang “had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy.”House Republicans are prepared to issue a subpoena to Huang if he doesn’t respond to their request for a closed-door briefing by Wednesday. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wants a briefing on Nov. 18. Huang hasn’t committed to appearing before Congress yet.