A senior Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee is calling for Jensen Huang to step down as CEO of Nvidia following the disclosure that he had an extramarital affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said Huang’s actions as head of the world’s largest AI chip company pose a clear national security risk.
“The potential for extortion is so tremendous that something as sensitive as Nvidia chips, I just think he’s got to go,” Cramer told POLITICO late Tuesday.
“If the worst thing he did in real life is infidelity with this woman who may or may not be a Chinese spy — but she might be — that’s enough, because whatever else there is, we don’t know. And to me, that’s a security risk.”
The Republican senator’s comments follow an explosive New York Times report last month that U.S. officials determined that Alice Huang, a businesswoman associated with Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed who had developed a close relationship with Huang, was a Chinese intelligence asset suspected of helping funnel advanced Nvidia chips to China.
Cramer is a member of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over legislation that could curb the sale of Nvidia chips to China. A trio of bills introduced in the committee, including the AI OVERWATCH Act, the Chip Security Act and the MATCH Act, are under consideration for inclusion in the must-pass defense spending bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act — and whose odds have seemingly increased since the spy scandal roiled Washington.
Nvidia did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
Cramer’s remarks came hours after Larry Kudlow, the former director of the National Economic Council, urged Huang to resign from his post.
“Step down Mr. Huang, right now,” Kudlow said on the financial and economic affairs program he hosts on Fox Business Network, characterizing such a move as a “commonsense action.”
Over the weekend, Nvidia’s board announced it is launching an independent investigation into the allegations that Huang was the target of a Chinese intelligence effort. The inquiry is being overseen by a committee of independent directors with assistance from outside independent counsel. Cramer additionally said the internal investigation was “fine, but not nearly enough.”
This story originally appeared on POLITICO and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces, and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms.
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