Jensen Huang Allegedly Misled Nvidia's Top Lawyer and Marketing Chief About Affair With Alice Huang

Two people familiar with the matter, along with internal correspondence reviewed by Reuters, say Jensen Huang misled senior Nvidia leaders about his relationship with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman with whom he had an affair. The leaders included general counsel Tim Teter and chief marketing officer Alison Wagonfeld. Reuters is the first to report on the correspondence, and it reviewed several exchanges from October on the condition that it not quote the messages directly.

On Thursday, Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO. He had been a pioneer of the technology behind the recent boom in artificial intelligence. In a statement he apologised for being unfaithful to his wife and for disappointing the company. The statement did not name Alice Huang. The two share a last name but are not related. She is a former top executive of Megaspeed International, an Nvidia customer, and the United States was investigating whether she might be spying for China.

According to the people Reuters spoke to, who requested anonymity, the pattern goes back about a year. In autumn 2025 and again in October 2026, press queries drew some Nvidia leaders' attention to his relationship with Megaspeed and Alice Huang. Both times, he described the interactions as appropriate. Reuters saw only the messages from October, not those from 2025.

In two separate October messages, he told Nvidia leaders, Teter and Wagonfeld among them, that the interactions reflected standard business dealings with customers. In other messages he affirmed that his dealings with Megaspeed were routine.

The 2025 episode began with a New York Times article published in October of that year, which drew attention to his public meetings with Alice Huang. It prompted him to talk with some Nvidia leaders about their interactions, which, the people said, he did not describe as an affair. He also discussed taking legal action against the Times. Neither he nor Nvidia sued, and a spokesperson for the paper said it received no legal demand.

It is unclear when the relationship became intimate. Photos posted online and verified by Reuters show the two together in the United States, China and elsewhere, going back as far as December 2023.

There are other reports as well. The New York Times reported this week that Huang had an extramarital relationship with an Nvidia employee, and Reuters reported Thursday that he had another intimate relationship with a different Nvidia employee.

On November 10, the independent members of Nvidia's board said they had hired the Wall Street law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct an independent investigation. That followed reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about his relations with Alice Huang and about US authorities' suspicions that she was spying for China. Beijing has denied that she is a spy. Reuters has not independently verified whether she worked on behalf of the Chinese government. In a Bloomberg interview published October 29, Huang said the US government had not told him of its suspicions about her.

Teter did not respond to a request for comment, and Wagonfeld did not immediately respond. A representative for Huang and an Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment. A call and email to the contact details on a business card for Alice Huang went unanswered.

The market has already registered the turmoil. Nvidia's stock is down more than 30% from its October 6 closing high, which has erased more than US$1.8 trillion of market value. The findings of the Wachtell investigation are the next thing to watch.