WASHINGTON — Ousted Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has hired heavyweight defense firm Paul Weiss to confront a spiraling national security and corporate crisis, just as federal lawmakers move to haul him before Congress for closed-door questioning.
Huang stepped down on Thursday. His sudden exit ended three decades atop the world’s dominant artificial intelligence chipmaker. The resignation followed disclosures that Huang engaged in extramarital affairs with three women—including an Nvidia executive and a Chinese businesswoman whom US intelligence officials suspect of operating as an intelligence asset for Beijing.
Paul Weiss partners Melinda Haag and Walter Brown are now quarterbacking Huang's legal defense. Haag previously served as the US Attorney for the Northern District of California under the Obama administration, while Brown specializes in white-collar defense. Neither attorney responded to formal inquiries regarding the scope of their representation.
Congress wasted no time moving on the fallout.
Republican leaders across several high-profile US House committees, including the House Foreign Affairs Committee, dispatched a formal letter to Brown demanding Huang sit for an transcribed, closed-door interview next month. Lawmakers are focusing intently on whether sensitive commercial roadmaps, semiconductor trade secrets, or advanced chip supply networks were compromised during the unvetted relationships.
Yet Capitol Hill is not the only front Huang must navigate. Nvidia’s board of directors has separately retained elite corporate firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to steer a parallel independent inquiry into the governance lapses. That investigation is spearheaded by partner Joon Kim, a former acting US Attorney and veteran federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York.
| Institutional Legal Front | Lead Defense / Investigative Counsel | Mandate / Core Objective | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jensen Huang Defense Team | Melinda Haag & Walter Brown (Paul Weiss) | Defense against federal oversight and congressional inquiry | Active; deposition requested for next month |
| Nvidia Board of Directors | Joon Kim (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz) | Independent internal corporate misconduct probe | Underway |
| US House of Representatives | House Foreign Affairs & Joint Panels | Scrutiny into national security and espionage exposure | Closed-door interview demanded |
Paul Weiss, a Manhattan-headquartered legal behemoth commanding more than 1,500 attorneys, has spent decades serving as corporate America's premier crisis shield. Its roster regularly enlists former senior Justice Department luminaries. In 2021, asset management titan BlackRock tapped Paul Weiss partner and former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to run an internal examination into employee complaints of discrimination and sexual harassment.
But the firm carries its own fresh political scars.
Last year, Paul Weiss reached an unprecedented agreement with President Donald Trump to roll back a March 2025 executive order that had stripped the firm’s lawyers of federal security clearances and banned them from entering government facilities. Trump's retaliatory directive had targeted the firm over its internal diversity frameworks and past ties to prosecutors investigating him. To erase the sanction, Paul Weiss pledged $40 million in pro bono legal services earmarked for administration priorities—a concession that triggered harsh blowback from Democrats and sparked copycat pacts across eight rival corporate law firms.
Paul Weiss faced further structural turmoil in February when longtime chairman Brad Karp abruptly resigned his post. Internal communications revealed Karp maintained extensive personal and professional contact with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Karp, who maintained he engaged in no illegal conduct, stated the revelations had become an untenable distraction for the partnership.
Haag brings seasoned trial experience to Huang's corner, having successfully secured the 2020 acquittal of former Fitbit executive Katherine Mogal against federal trade secret theft indictments. Brown remains immersed in high-stakes technology litigation, currently representing Meta Platforms against allegations brought by an Australian mining executive over fraudulent cryptocurrency advertisements on Facebook.
Huang and his legal counsel must now formulate a response to the House committee demands before the deposition deadline expires next month.