Nvidia CEO’s daughter cancels Seoul trip as board probes Huang affair with alleged Chinese spy

Nvidia senior director Madison Huang has cancelled a planned visit to South Korea, as her father, chief executive Jensen Huang, faces a board investigation over his affair with a Singapore-based executive US officials believe was recruited by Chinese intelligence.

Madison Huang left seen with her father right.

Madison Huang had been due to arrive on Sunday for Nvidia AI Day Seoul 2026, held Monday and Tuesday at the COEX exhibition centre, and to meet South Korean government officials. Sources told the Korea Herald the trip was called off over “family issues”. They gave no further detail.

Shares hit

Nvidia shares fell as much as 8.8% in US trading on Monday, at one point wiping close to US$400 billion off the company’s market value, Bloomberg reported.

The fall followed a Sunday memo to staff in which Jensen Huang admitted the relationship, apologised and said he would cooperate fully with a review.

Board and Congress move

Nvidia’s board said a committee of independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, will investigate reports that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

The woman at the centre of the case is Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and executive at Singapore-based data centre operator Megaspeed seen right .

The board said it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets had been compromised, but that its inquiry would examine all available information.

Three Republican chairs of House committees covering China, foreign affairs and intelligence have separately requested a closed-door briefing with Huang ahead of Nvidia’s third-quarter results.

The allegations

The woman at the centre of the case is Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and executive at Singapore-based data centre operator Megaspeed, an Nvidia customer. She is not related to Jensen Huang.

The New York Times reported on 29 October that US officials, drawing on electronic surveillance, had concluded she was a Chinese intelligence asset who had built a close relationship with the Nvidia chief.

The Financial Times later reported that a memo written by US officials earlier this year described the relationship as romantic and said she had been recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security.

According to reports, US officials believe she gained Huang’s favour through Megaspeed’s purchases of billions of dollars of Nvidia chips for AI data centres in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

The White House and the CIA declined to comment on the memo. Huang had earlier said his dealings with Alice Huang related to Megaspeed and were “completely normal”, and that the US government had not told him of its suspicions.

Megaspeed under scrutiny

Megaspeed has previously faced allegations that it diverted Nvidia chips to China in breach of US export controls. Singapore police have confirmed an investigation into the company is ongoing.

Megaspeed has denied wrongdoing, saying site inspections by Nvidia and US officials found “no evidence” of violations.

Short seller’s warning

Short seller Culper Research flagged the relationship months earlier, according to the New York Post. Its May 2026 report, “NVIDIA (NVDA): The China Problem”, did not allege an affair but described the ties between Huang and the Megaspeed executive as unusually close.

The report alleged Megaspeed was secretly financed by Alibaba through a series of apparent shell companies. It cited a Megaspeed employee describing the company’s relationship with Huang as “very close”, and a former Nvidia employee who said many staff had wondered whether there was a special relationship.