The future of AI hinges on… Jensen Huang’s sex life?

by Elizabeth LopattoNov 9, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC Elizabeth Lopatto is a reporter who writes about tech, money, and human behavior. She joined The Verge in 2014 as science editor. Previously, she was a reporter at Bloomberg.

I would prefer that these people’s sex lives were none of my business but I guess we have to talk about Jensen Huang and the National Security Incident. Who could have guessed that the guy who was out here signing titties might not have great judgment about how to behave around women?

Alice Huang — no relation to Jensen — is a former TV reporter. That was before she became “an executive” at Megaspeed, which bought $4.8 billion of hard-to-get Nvidia chips, starting around the time she was being photographed with Jensen in a Taipei bar in 2024. “To many in the industry, the well-funded push by Megaspeed into A.I. appeared to come out of nowhere,” The New York Times wrote, tactfully. Our girl Alice is also an alleged honeypot who was recruited by the Chinese Ministry of State Security. (China is denying all this, btw.)

What is Megaspeed? Well. The company has ties to the Chinese military and builds data centers in “Southeast Asia” (it has offices in Singapore and Indonesia) to sell compute to Alibaba. The chips it is using to do that are banned from being imported to China. Incidentally, Nvidia has been lobbying very intensely to get rid of import controls on its chips so it can sell them in China.

This is all public knowledge in part because Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly “oversaw” a memo detailing Alice’s recruitment and relationship with Jensen, and then someone leaked it. (Powerful memo game, Marco, getting credit for one you didn’t even write!) Rubio passed his little note around in May, ahead of a trip to China taken by President Donald Trump. Jensen initially didn’t make the list of invitees on the trip — at least, not until Trump saw media coverage of the perceived snub. Trump and Jensen? They’re close. Which makes it even more interesting that Trump was personally briefed on the findings and did nothing, according to the Times.

You know shit is going good when your corporate spokesperson has to tell the Times that of course your company does not disclose classified information to your customers. John Rizzo, the spokesman, also told the Times that Nvidia’s customers don’t ask Nvidia to lobby for changes to the chip restriction. Bit of a hat on a hat, John. First of all, they don’t have to — Nvidia’s financial incentives do it for them. Second, imagine this is a regular company. The business model of Megaspeed is that the chips are restricted, and that Megaspeed gets ahold of them. Megaspeed has no incentive to upend this situation! Unless, you know, it’s acting against its financial interest because it’s a front for Chinese spies… in which case, that statement is going to be embarrassing.

Speaking of embarrassing, Rizzo told the Times “that Mr. Huang’s interactions with Ms. Huang were ‘not unusual’ and consistent with the kinds of meetings he has with any of Nvidia’s many customers.” Oh, okay. Who else was Jensen fucking?

Because two days after that statement, Jensen sent the most incredible email addressed “To my colleagues at Nvidia” in which he admitted he had been “unfaithful.” Then, he wrote, “To my wife and family: I love you. I know an apology cannot undo what I have done. I hope our family will heal and that, over time, I can earn back your trust.” Are… your wife and family on the Nvidia employee email list?

Well, yes! His son is a director of product management; his daughter is a senior marketing director. He even gave a job to his son-in-law!

Also, Nvidia has an extraordinary structure. Jensen has 60 direct reports. Leave aside that there is no possible way to manage that many people well. I would like to direct your attention to something else entirely: If he is in trouble, there is no part of the company that is untouched. The usual problems attain, of course — he was in a position to have gotten any information she might have requested! He could have left company laptops available for infiltration! But because of the structure, he also could have issued commands to his many direct reports that benefited the CCP. Neat! I sure hope someone who knows a lot about cybersecurity is going through Nvidia with a fine-toothed comb.

Is he in trouble? Well, Nvidia is opening an investigation into Jensen, who is also its largest individual shareholder. (At least there’s no dual-class stock!) Nvidia shares are, as of this writing, down almost five percent, which seems like an underreaction.

Perhaps more consequentially, the Democratic Party just swept back into power and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) seems mad. Also, the voters hate the data centers that house Nvidia chips, and I notice a lot of ambitious politicians thinking about the next presidential elections. For instance, there’s Rubio’s name attached to the memo. I also notice Trump’s popularity is at an all-time nadir. Besides any Democrats positioning themselves for a run, a Republican looking to create some daylight between himself and Trump could easily do so by going to town on Jensen, who is Trump’s buddy. I do not think Rubio is the only ambition monster to worry about.

I don’t know where Jensen’s actual wife, Lori, is in all this. They got married in 1985. She gave up her job as a microchip designer to raise their kids. I would be very surprised if there is a prenup. I would be somewhat surprised if there was a postnup. Jensen doesn’t own as much of Nvidia as Jeff Bezos did of Amazon when he cheated on and divorced his wife, but it’s something to keep an eye on, if Lori decides she’s out.

We’ve talked once or

Source: www.theverge.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.