Within hours of Jensen Huang’s admission on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife, some of Silicon Valley’s most influential investors closed ranks around him.
Their messages, delivered mostly on social media, were consistent. Mr. Huang’s relationship with a woman identified by U.S. officials as a Chinese spy was a personal failing. Losing the Nvidia chief executive, they argued, would be a far bigger blow to the country, and America couldn’t win the artificial intelligence race without him.
“Jensen is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of this generation,” Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, wrote in a post on Sunday afternoon. He said that Mr. Huang “did something incredibly dumb,” and that it was bad for America, “but my guess is there was no bad intention.” He concluded that Mr. Huang is “irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership.”
About an hour later, Elon Musk quoted the post and added: “I agree.”
The show of loyalty reflects Mr. Huang’s rarefied standing in Silicon Valley. In the three decades since he co-founded Nvidia, he has gone from running a maker of video game graphics cards to presiding over the company at the center of the A.I. boom, now one of the world’s most valuable companies.
Nvidia’s chips are the scarce resource every A.I. company needs, a position that makes Mr. Huang something of a kingmaker. Decisions about who gets his products, and how many, can shape which start-ups and tech giants pull ahead. Nvidia’s finances are also deeply intertwined with other leading A.I. companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic.
(China has rejected the espionage claims. Alice Huang, the Chinese executive accused of spying for Beijing, has not responded to requests for comment.)
Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager, called Mr. Huang “an incredible human” who took “full responsibility as he should,” and urged people to “support him and his family.” Later on Sunday, Mr. Ackman added that he was “not suggesting he gets a free pass.”
On Monday, the investor Gavin Baker argued that many venture capitalists were “patriotic Americans” who believed Mr. Huang’s policy views served the country against China. He wrote that it would be “a disaster for America — and a gift to China — if Jensen goes down.”
“100% in agreement,” replied Jason Calacanis, a host of the All-In podcast, which is a popular podcast hosted by a group of venture capitalists including David Sacks, President Trump’s former A.I. and crypto czar.
Antonio Gracias, the founder of Valor Equity Partners and a longtime associate of Mr. Musk, agreed on Tuesday: “America would not be ahead in the AI race without Jensen,” he wrote. “He clearly made a mistake. One mistake does not erase a lifetime of leadership.”
The All-In hosts have been close to Mr. Huang. During an appearance onstage with the podcast’s hosts in September, Mr. Huang took a phone call from Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump, too, has stood by Mr. Huang. “I really believe him,” he said on Monday, recalling a conversation when Mr. Huang told him he did not know that Ms. Huang was a spy. The Times has reported that Mr. Trump was briefed a year ago about intelligence showing that Ms. Huang was an operative for the Chinese government. Mr. Trump on Tuesday demurred when asked whether he received the briefing last year.
Mr. Huang has been among Washington’s most forceful voices against cutting China off from American chips, and has been an ally of Mr. Trump since his return to office. That, Mr. Calacanis acknowledged, makes him and his company “a critical target, and we need to protect them both.”
In Congress, the Republican leaders of three influential House committees have asked Mr. Huang to appear for a closed-door briefing on his interactions with Ms. Huang.
The Times reported last month that U.S. officials had concluded Ms. Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore company that bought billions of dollars of Nvidia chips, had been recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security.
Nvidia’s board has opened an investigation, and says it has no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. Beijing dismissed the allegations as smears.
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