Nvidia hired Wall Street defense firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz on Tuesday to investigate chief executive Jensen Huang's personal ties to an alleged Chinese intelligence operative, scrambling to contain an escalating national security scandal that has already erased $500 billion from the chipmaker's market valuation.
The inquiry, spearheaded by former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon Kim, follows an active FBI counterintelligence probe and mounting scrutiny from Capitol Hill. Nvidia confirmed the retention after Huang acknowledged engaging in an extramarital relationship with Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, an executive previously linked to a Singaporean client under federal review. She bears no familial relationship to the Nvidia co-founder.
Washington intervened months earlier. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio dispatched a formal memo to senior national security officials warning that Huang had maintained a close personal connection with a suspected Chinese state asset.
The market reacted violently. Shares of Nvidia tumbled toward a 52-week low, wiping out approximately $500 billion (£375 billion) in equity value since Friday. The semiconductor heavyweight, which in 2025 became the first company in history to breach the $4 trillion and $5 trillion market capitalization thresholds, surrendered its perch as the world's most valuable enterprise, slipping behind Apple as geopolitical shockwaves rippled across the tech sector.
At the vortex of the inquiry sits Megaspeed, a Singapore-based hardware distributor and commercial customer of Nvidia where Alice Huang served as an executive. US intelligence officials have scrutinized the intermediary for allegedly diverting cutting-edge artificial intelligence silicon into mainland China, skirting strict export curbs designed to restrict Beijing's military computing capabilities.
Nvidia pushed back against the diversion accusations. Company leadership stated it previously conducted an internal review into Megaspeed's procurement and deemed the illicit diversion claims unfounded, adding that US national security agencies never flagged the Singaporean firm as an active intelligence entity.
Nvidia's board of directors moved swiftly over the weekend to compartmentalize the fallout. An independent committee of directors commissioned Wachtell to mount what the company termed an exhaustive, uncompromised inquiry into the executive suite's operational safeguards.
Pressure deepened across Washington on Monday when US President Donald Trump addressed the swirling counterintelligence probe directly, stating he spoke with Huang regarding the relationship. Trump confirmed Huang insisted he had no knowledge of Alice Huang's alleged espionage ties, with the president declaring he took the chief executive at his word.
Beijing forcefully rejected the espionage charges. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the American accusations, dismissing the allegations as fabrications designed to malign the country's technological posture and sovereign reputation.
Congressional leaders have now escalated the conflict to Capitol Hill. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs formally instructed Huang to appear for a closed-door deposition next week, with lawmakers prepared to exercise unilateral subpoena authority if the semiconductor executive balks at testifying voluntarily.
Huang has not confirmed whether he will comply with the congressional summons.
The appointment of Wachtell places one of corporate America's most formidable regulatory enforcement practices directly between Nvidia and federal investigators. The Manhattan firm, counsel to tech titans including OpenAI and Salesforce, will examine whether communications between the chief executive and Alice Huang breached company firewalls or exposed sensitive export blueprints. Investigator Joon Kim brings extensive experience prosecuting federal fraud, financial corruption, and international racketeering cases.
Yet significant jurisdictional roadblocks loom. Independent investigators have not determined whether Wachtell's legal team can secure physical or direct investigative access to interview Alice Huang herself.
Nvidia maintained that its preliminary findings reveal no breach of proprietary architectural blueprints, supply chain manifests, or classified sovereign security parameters. But as the FBI probe runs parallel to the congressional inquiry, Huang must either confirm his voluntary testimony or face an immediate subpoena battle before House committee leaders ahead of next week's closed-door hearing.