The board of Nvidia said it had no reason to believe that the company's secrets or national security were compromised.
Page F139From§Eachthe evening edition — 10 November 2026
SIX MONTHS LATE
Huang lobbied Trump to loosen China chip limits months before intelligence flagged the woman as a spy.
As it ran on the front
I had the page, I just didn't have the notebook open to it — give me a second. I keep two of these, and I grabbed the wrong one twice this morning before I found the one I wanted. Here. September 28th, I wrote it in red: Nvidia's board authorized another $150 billion to buy back the company's own stock, which brought the total they're allowed to spend buying themselves up to $235 billion. I put a question mark next to that number. I'm still not sure why.
Before I get to today, I want to go back further, because I don't want to get ahead of the page. Last year — this is in the Post, this morning — Mr. Huang, the chief executive, was photographed with a woman named Alice Huang, an executive the Post says U.S. intelligence has since identified as a suspected Chinese spy. The same report says weeks after those photos — still last year — Mr. Huang went to the president and asked him to loosen the limits on how many of Nvidia's chips the company could sell into China. The photos, then the ask. That's the order the Post puts it in, and I keep checking the order because that's the part I'd get wrong if I wasn't careful.…
…(cont) Then, this past May, a research shop called Culper flagged the relationship publicly as "uncomfortably close." Wall Street had the name in May.
September 28th, the buyback — I already read you that page.
October 29th, the Times reported Mr. Huang was the target of what it called a Chinese spy plot, and that the president had been briefed on it and taken no action. And this week, CBS reports the board had told people in October there was "no reason to believe" the company's secrets or national security had been compromised. I wrote "no reason to believe" down exactly like that, in quotes, because I wanted to get it right.
November 6th, the Times again: China's top intelligence agency had recruited the woman who targeted him. Not my word, "targeted" — the Times's, in November.
And today — four things, in the order I wrote them down this morning. One, the president told reporters the FBI is now investigating. Two, Mr. Huang told the president he didn't know who she was. Three, Nvidia's own board — the same board that said in October there was no reason to believe anything was compromised — opened its own investigation into its own chief executive. Four, the stock fell more than four percent Monday, about two hundred billion dollars gone in a day.
I keep my toll receipts in the glovebox, dated, in the order I paid them, because that's the only way I've found to prove where I was on a given day. If I lost a week of them, I couldn't tell you whether I paid a toll before or after I picked the dog up from the vet. The dates are the whole proof. The board had a date on its finding — October, no reason to believe. It has another date now — this week, an investigation into the same man. What changed between them that wasn't on the stock ticker?
One more thing, before you get up — I almost let it go. The board found $150 billion worth of confidence in its own company in September. The market found $200 billion worth of doubt about the man running it in November. Same board. Same company. Which of those two numbers was it actually counting?
“This isn't a love story, it's an export license with a security problem attached. The board called it "no risk" in October and opened a probe on the same man in November, right after the stock dropped $200 billion — pension money, not boardroom money. He asked Trump to loosen China chip limits the same year he was photographed with the woman U.S. intelligence now calls a spy, and the ask came first.”
“The President looked him in the eye and said he really believes Jensen had no idea — that's due diligence at the highest level, not that we needed any. The board's investigation is just good governance, completely unrelated to the $200 billion, which is also fine, also a coincidence — wait, did I just call a stock crash "also fine"? Nothing to see here, moving on.”
Earlier in this story
- Trump 'really believes' Nvidia chief's spy secret — six months after Wall Street printed it. By Lou · the evening edition, 9 November 2026
- Nvidia dismissed the spy allegation, had its chip probe moved to Justice, then confirmed the affair. By Lou · the afternoon edition, 9 November 2026
- Nvidia dismissed the spy report in October; its own CEO confirmed it in November. By Lou · the afternoon edition, 8 November 2026
The receipts
The US president said he spoke with Jensen Huang on Monday and asked him about the affair with the alleged spy.
The $150 billion AI boss appeared in loved-up snaps with accused communist spy Alice Huang last year — and then weeks later pitched Trump on relaxing export restrictions for the company's chips.
President Trump told reporters Monday that he believed Jensen Huang’s account and said he did not recall receiving a briefing warning him about Mr. Huang’s liaison.
Shares of Nvidia, the world's top AI chipmaker, fell more than 4% on Monday, wiping out about $200 billion in stock market value. The company's CEO admitted to an affair with a woman identified by U.S. intelligence as a former data center executive suspected of spying for China.
· Nvidia Chief, Jensen Huang, Is Seen as Target of Chinese Spy Plot from the morgue, 29 Oct 2026
· Tech Giant Nvidia Announces Largest Stock Buyback in US History as AI Profits Surge from the morgue, 28 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.