Nvidia's board opens an investigation after Jensen Huang admits an affair amid reports he was a spy target

Nvidia's board of directors has opened an independent investigation into reports that its founder and chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been "the target of a foreign intelligence effort." The board announced the review on Sunday, Nov. 8, after Huang told employees in a note that he had been unfaithful to his wife.

A committee of independent directors will oversee the review with help from outside counsel, the board said in its statement on Nvidia's newsroom. It added that it has "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised," but that the inquiry "will examine all available information." Huang supports the review and has agreed to cooperate, and the board said it still has confidence in him and his leadership team. The statement names no country and no other person.

What Huang told employees

Huang's note, which Business Insider published in full, opens with an apology to his family. "I was unfaithful to my wife," he wrote. "My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did."

He then turned to the company. Addressing colleagues, the board, partners and shareholders, he wrote that "you deserve better from me" and that he had "fallen short" of his responsibility to them. On the national security questions he pointed to the board's review: "I support the investigation and will cooperate fully." He asked that his family be left alone and said they bear no responsibility for his choices.

The note does not name the woman involved and does not describe what, if anything, he discussed with her.

The House request that came first

Four days before the board acted, the chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the House Select Committee on the CCP and the House Intelligence Committee wrote to Huang asking him to brief them behind closed doors about Nvidia's protections against foreign espionage and about his interactions with Alice Huang, an executive at the company Megaspeed whom the letter calls "a publicly reported People's Republic of China (PRC) intelligence asset." Edit USA covered that letter on Nov. 7.

The chairmen, Reps. Brian Mast, John Moolenaar and Rick Crawford, asked Huang to accept a Nov. 18 date in the Rayburn House Office Building or offer another session day by Nov. 11.

Neither the board nor Huang has said how long the review will take or whether its findings will be made public. The board said only that it "will provide further updates as appropriate." Nvidia has not said whether Huang will accept the House date, and neither statement responds to the specific claims in the news reports.