It’s beginning to look a lot like 2017, thanks to ex-Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
asserted
It → begin → Huang
The Nvidia co-founder’s career has spontaneously combusted since he admitted last week to an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman who U.S. officials suspect of being an asset or agent of China’s Ministry of State Security, its equivalent of the CIA.
asserted
officials → combust → CIA
A trio of House committee chairs have demanded Huang appear before Congress to brief them on his ties to Ms. Huang (no relation).
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Huang → demand → Huang
On Monday, The New York Times revealed that he’d also had a second affair with one of his subordinates, leading Nvidia’s board to move towards tossing him out of the company he’d started three decades earlier.
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he → reveal → company
The tech billionaire’s problems have brought about a temporal vibe shift — reviving and exposing Trump administration infighting and leaking at a level not seen since the heady early months of the president’s chaotic first White House term.
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problems → bring → term
To start, the Times scooped that Marco Rubio, Secretary of State cum National Security Adviser, was so sufficiently alarmed at what U.S. intelligence officials were learning about Alice Huang through electronic surveillance that he drafted a classified memorandum detailing how she’d allegedly been recruited by the Chinese spy agency.
uncertain
she → start → agency
The goal of the Chinese operation was reportedly to send Alice Huang to target Jensen Huang in hopes of learning more about his products and influencing him to push Nvidia towards selling Beijing more of the company’s cutting-edge AI chips, according to reports.
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goal → send → reports
Rubio was so concerned by what he read about the Nvidia CEO’s relationship with Alice Huang that he made a point of briefing President Donald Trump on the memorandum while aboard Air Force One en route to China this past May.
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he → read → China
Yet the Secretary of State’s warnings appeared to have little effect on Trump.
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warnings → appear → Trump
He was so hell-bent on having Huang travel with him to Beijing that he ordered his Air Force One crew to wait at an Alaska air base for Huang to meet him there on a private jet.
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Huang → have → jet
Trump appeared to have been taken in by a charm offensive the then-Nvidia CEO was mounting to convince him to relax export controls on his company’s top-end chips.
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CEO → appear → chips
The Biden administration had restricted their export out of concern that acquiring them could help foreign adversaries (mainly Beijing) gain an advantage over the U.S. in the race to develop the most advanced AI models.
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adversaries → restrict → models
Having curried favor with the president by way of a $25 million corporate donation to the controversial White House ballroom project, Trump and his allies began giving Huang a freer hand in who he sold his products to.
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he → curry → products
In turn, Huang became a frequent visitor to the White House.
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Huang → become → House
At the same time, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — the U.S. official responsible for administering the country’s export control regime — was reportedly refusing to impose any sanctions on Alice Huang’s company, Megaspeed, despite serious concerns from the U.S. intelligence community over whether the company was serving as a front for Beijing’s efforts to acquire more of Nvidia’s top-end products.
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company → administer → products
Now, with Huang having been forcibly exited from the empire he built, the scrutiny is intensifying on Lutnick.
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scrutiny → exit → Lutnick
Administration officials have always been reluctant to so much as hint at criticizing Trump, and his cozy relationship and seeming willful ignorance of Jensen Huang’s dalliance with an alleged Chinese honeypot is no exception.
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relationship → hint → honeypot
But the Commerce Secretary, a longtime friend of Trump’s going back to their days as New York City high-rollers, does not inspire the same fear.
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Secretary → go → fear
Newly resurfaced audio, from the tech bro favorite All In podcast, reveals him boasting about his own close relationship with Huang, who he called a “national treasure” that he had brought into Trump’s inner circle.
“I promised him in the beginning when I first met him that I would help him have really easy access to the president,” Lutnick said during a podcast taping in January, speaking to a cohort of hosts that included the then-White House AI Czar, David Sacks.
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that → resurface → Czar
He described how Huang sold Trump on relaxing export controls by arguing that it would keep China dependent on his own AI chips rather than building up domestic manufacturing, and said Trump agreed with the caveat that Nvidia pay a 25 percent tariff when importing them into the U.S. for testing.
“He (Huang) has to send the chips to America.
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He → describe → America
We test the chip to make sure that he hasn’t enhanced it in any way...
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he → test → way
On the way in, we can charge it a tariff, a regular 25 percent tariff, and then we can give export licenses to whoever he wants to sell it to.
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he → charge → it
He sends it to China, or he sends it to whoever he’s selling it to,” Lutnick said.
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Lutnick → send → it
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wasted no time pointing the finger Friday when he told CNBC that it was the Lutnick-led Commerce Department who resisted putting Megaspeed, the China-linked company, on his department’s “Entity List” of companies not allowed to purchase American products.
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who → waste → products
Asked whether the Trump administration considered adding Megaspeed to the list, Bessent replied: “I can tell you there was coordination.
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I → ask → you
They were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months.
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They → put → months
But Commerce has the pen.
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Commerce → have → pen
Then, he twisted the knife.
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he → twist → knife
“You will have to ask them about their internal process,” he said.
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he → have → process
More embarrassment for Lutnick came in the form of a leak to Axios revealing that he’d been one of the officials who’d received the Rubio memorandum warning about Jensen Huang’s ties to Alice Huang and Megaspeed.
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who → come → Huang
And things may get worse.
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things → get → ?
Lutnick is scheduled to testify before Congress on this very matter within days.
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Lutnick → schedule → days
Last time he was on Capitol Hill, he gave a questionable performance under questioning about his relationship with deceased sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
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he → give → Epstein
This time, he will have to explain why he didn’t care that one of America’s most important companies was selling sensitive products to a company with suspected links to Chinese espionage.
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one → have → espionage
The Aporia
