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That was my understanding too. The spy part makes for a good story, but if she came out and said "Hey, I'm a spy for China. Want to share something of value to the state?" it would make her a terrible spy, so I'd assume it's really about poor judgement.

How'd they figure out she was a spy anyway?

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This is a bit like saying "I didn't know passeordstealer.baddies.com was a phishing site when I typed in the company's password for the bank, so it's not my fault all our money was stolen!"

For sure he is the victim of an adversarial attack against him and Nvidia, but as the leader of one of the most valuable companies in the world in am industry where IP and company secrets hold huge economic value, then you really need to expect and anticipate that spies will be trying to infiltrate your org and steal your secrets. I think you can clearly say he has demonstrated bad judgement here.

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Him being removed for sleeping with a spy would not necessarily be intended as a punishment for sleeping with her, it's a self defense mechanism to prevent the spy from continuing to have access to a highly placed, compromised individual
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Current evidence suggests he didn’t even do a prelim background check. His mistress worked for Chinese state television prior to the role she assumed through which she was introduced to him.

Source: The Economist. (Paywalled) https://economist.com/business/2026/11/11/there-has-never-be...

> That she might be a Chinese agent would have been obvious to Mr Huang had he inquired about her background: before going into business, Ms Huang worked at a Chinese state-run broadcaster known by its unimprovable acronym, “CCTV”.

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A piece of speculative but interesting information: the FBI didn't give Jensen Huang a "defense briefing" which would warn him that he was being targeted, despite them knowing Alice Huang was a spy a year prior (memo circulated in May by the state department). Apparently this is very atypical.

The FBI so far has not provided a reason for the lack of a brief, but one reason they might not provide one is they suspect the target is a willing participant.

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Large numbers of chips sold at high prices skirting export laws would possibly make him a willing participant...
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Isn't the fact that her company is alleged to have smuggled a ton of banned NVIDIA chips into China a lot worse than the fact that he slept with her? Infidelity isn't good but nobody will arrest you for it. Sanctioned goods are a different story
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The person you replied to is not making a moral judgement. The reason it is bad for Nvidia that he slept with her is the leverage she had over him. The impropriety is just an issue for his family.
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Spy is just an allegation
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> I'll admit I haven't really been following this story, but I ASSUME he didn't know she was a spy?

As best I've heard, nobody knows that now. We have some rumors with absolutely nothing behind them.

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I'm sorry, is your assertion that he didn't know somehow makes this better?

That assertion makes no sense, yet tits the best interpretation I can gather from your odd comment!

Surely you mean something else?!

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Incompetence is a great reason to fire someone, it turns out.
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The co-founder of NVIDIA, when it is basically at its peak stock value, is incompetent at running NVIDIA? Sure.
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Jesus, it's like nobody has ever watched a James Bond movie.
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It changes things from "he was the victim of a spy" to "sanctions evading conspirator that aided an enemy".

Even more interesting given his Taiwanese citizenship.

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You literally only think shes a spy because the US Propaganda machine says so. There's no evidence of this.

We are so one shot by hollywood movies that if a newspaper points at an attractive middle aged women, whos foriegn, and says shes a spy we'll all believe it.

There's literally nothing to prove this, not even anything suspicious. Its just the Trump admin, whos owned by Silicon Valley oligarchs saying so. Wanting to buy GPUs, even if its for China does not make you a spy. It makes you a business person.

I know Ill get another 5 downvotes for saying this, but its true. Zero evidence. Its the perfect story to kick off the war against Chinese open source models which have really put a damper on Anthropic and OpenAI's revenue.

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Her whole work history is very suspicious. The company she worked for is extremely suspicious.
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