The US intelligence community intercepted communications in the spring indicating that an executive of Megaspeed, a company under investigation for possibly diverting sensitive technology to China, was having an affair with a US person.
The American was “masked” in the intelligence reporting, a standard procedure used by intelligence agencies to protect the privacy of US persons whose communications might be picked up during the monitoring of foreign targets, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
But upon seeing the raw intelligence, US officials requested that the American’s name be “unmasked”— revealing the individual to be the now- former NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang , the sources said.
Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio then drafted a memo summarizing the intelligence and disseminated it to a very small group of senior US officials, including at the White House, the sources said.
It is unusual for a US person’s identity to be unmasked in intelligence reports, and underscores how concerned US officials were by the information. Any request to unmask an American’s identity typically has to be made by a very senior official and go through an adjudication process before it is approved. And the intelligence would then be highly restricted and accessible to only a select few policymakers.
Rubio wanted officials to be aware of Jensen Huang’s relationship with the Megaspeed executive, Alice Huang, when they interacted with the then-CEO of NVIDIA, multiple sources said.
The memo was not drafted specifically for President Donald Trump, but he was briefed on the topic on multiple occasions, sources said. Rubio also briefed Trump verbally on the intelligence aboard Air Force One in May, when the president traveled to Alaska where Jensen joined the president’s group traveling to China, CNN previously reported.
Trump appeared at least partly focused on the claims about Huang’s extramarital affair, viewing it as an embarrassing personal matter for the then-NVIDIA CEO, a person familiar with his response said. He also voiced concern for what the findings could mean for the US economy, which has been buoyed by a surge in artificial intelligence spending.
Even this week, after Jensen Huang resigned amid allegations of additional affairs, Trump has spoken about the situation as a personal one for Huang, who he has spoken to multiple times this week. Trump said the embattled ex-CEO was “going through hell” and was concerned for his wife and children. He said the question of whether Alice Huang was a Chinese spy was unsettled.
The White House pointed to Trump’s public comments in response to questions about the situation around Huang’s affair.
Alice Huang had been an important intelligence target for the National Security Agency for at least several months by the spring, the sources said. The Justice and Commerce Departments began an investigation into her firm in 2024 — part of a broader probe into an ecosystem of foreign shell companies suspected of diverting restricted Nvidia chips to China, CNN has reported .
While the intelligence pointed to an affair between Jensen Huang and Alice Huang, the US intelligence community is still working to understand the relationship between Alice Huang and the Chinese government, CNN has reported.
Multiple sources who read Rubio’s memo said that in this instance it was a prudent move to share information with those engaging with Jensen Huang on behalf of the US government.
The fundamental problem is not just the information getting back to the Chinese but more so to what extent someone is “being coopted to approve deals without due diligence that are at odds with US national security objectives because of a personal relationship,” said one source.
There is disagreement among US officials about the strength of the evidence that Alice Huang was recruited by the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), the Chinese equivalent of the CIA, to spy on Jensen Huang — and, by extension, on US policymakers.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Thursday that there are still “no conclusions reached by the Department of Justice, or by me, or by (FBI) Director (Kash) Patel around who she is or is not.”
Under Chinese national security law, Chinese citizens can be compelled to help gather intelligence on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
Even if she had not done so yet, given her access to Jensen Huang — and by extension, to Trump — some officials believe Alice Huang posed a clear counterintelligence risk. But to others, the fixation on Huang’s relationship to the Chinese government has obscured broader questions around the US government’s failure to crack down on the diversion to China of sophisticated technology vital to the AI race.
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler and Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.
