SEOUL, South Korea — Developments and revelations continue to accelerate around suspected Chinese spy Alice Huang and her beau, former Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang.
With Mr. Huang — who, despite sharing a surname with his mistress, is not related — being Taiwanese-American, the case is of particular fascination in Taiwan.
Most indications so far are that Taiwan was caught off-balance when the scandal over Ms. Huang broke. The democratic island is highly sensitive to Chinese espionage, given that Beijing claims it as an errant province of the mainland
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Reports in Taiwanese media Friday say the Legislative Yuan has announced a joint investigation with the United States and other nations into whether Ms. Huang was a Chinese spy.
She reportedly entered Taiwan eight times over the last two years, on a Hong Kong passport. Her entry permit has now been revoked, according to the National Immigration Agency.
The fact that she entered Taiwan multiple times suggests that she had not been considered an espionage risk.
On the contrary, she had visited in plain sight — even being photographed by local media — with Mr. Huang on the sidelines of tech conferences in elite restaurants and bars.
Her social media posts also did not hide the relationship.
Reports from Taiwan suggest many citizens have been stunned by the multiple affairs engaged in by Mr. Huang — widely seen as a superstar corporate leader who is charismatic, informal and approachable and may be the most famous living Taiwanese-American.
Cascading indications are that the force that led to Mr. Huang’s downfall — his libido — was as notable as his management nous.
Reports from the United States claim that in addition to his affair with Ms. Huang, he also undertook extramarital dalliances with an Nvidia executive and an Nvidia employee.
However, the most sizzling allegations surround Huang Le, or Alice Huang.
Ms. Huang was born in central China and is believed to be in her late 40s. With a background in finance and corporate restructuring, she took control of Megaspeed, a Singapore-based firm that imported huge shipments of Nvidia semiconductors for export to China in 2023.
That same year, she began to be spotted with Mr. Huang. As Nvidia’s head, he oversees the development of some of the world’s most advanced AI chipsets — technologies that Washington wants to keep out of Chinese hands.
Washington alleges that she spied for Beijing and in October, released details about her relationship with Mr. Huang — who himself has been close to President Trump.
Mr. Huang admitted having an affair, apologized and resigned from his position as CEO of Nvidia. Billions were wiped off Nvidia’s stock valuation.
He has been summoned for questioning before Congress.
Speculation is swirling about who Ms. Huang — who has gone dark, whereabouts unknown — actually was, and what her motivations were.
The latest sensation: Reports claim it was Ms. Huang’s husband Kang Wei — a financial operative who has been charged with stock market manipulation — who first introduced her to Mr. Huang.
Naturally, the internet has piled on. Pundits have spoken out, and meme has followed meme.
Some U.S. counterintelligence officials suspect Ms. Huang was an industrial-espionage spy run by Beijing’s Ministry of State Security and tasked with burrowing deep into Nvidia, a flagship of America’s AI sector.
An online meme mocking this belief shows a series of Huang lookalikes rolling off a production line with the tagline, “China begins mass production of Alice Huang after its pilot model successfully honeytraps Nvidia CEO.”
China has officially denied that she was a spy — albeit few would anticipate an admission.
However, Beijing’s assertion is fortified by widespread commentaries pointing to Ms. Huang’s openness and apparent ignorance of operational security protocols.
Others wonder whether she was simply an ultra-ambitious “Tiger Madam” — a nouveau-riche type birthed amid the breakneck pace of China’s economic enrichment in the last two decades — who shot up the social-corporate ladder via romantic engagement with Mr. Huang.
Per this theory, her primary aims were self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment rather than industrial spying.
A related meme shows Mr. Huang conversing with South Korean tycoon Chey Tae-won, who heads leading memory chipmaker SK hynix. Superimposed behind the duo, are images of both men’s alleged mistresses.
While Mr. Huang prepares to face a congressional interrogation, Mr. Chey, who has admitted having a child out of wedlock, is embroiled in the divorce of the century. His ex-wife, the daughter of a former president, is demanding half his stock holdings — worth around $1.5 billion — on top of $2.2 million in alimony.
Combining the prior narratives, some suspect Ms. Huang was a businesswoman and socialite who Chinese intelligence may have tapped as a deniable, off-books asset once her relationship with the Nvidia chief began to bloom.
China watcher Desmond Shum wrote on X, “Having spent over two decades doing business in China, I recognize a different character [to a spy]: the ‘commercial fixer’ and ‘white glove,’ an intermediary who shields the real principals behind a deal.”
Mr. Shum’s 2021 memoir “Red Roulette” covered his years conducting business as a politically well-connected elite in China’s nascent capital markets and his subsequent downfall.
He referenced Chinese-language posts and reports that dug into her career prior to her relationship with Mr. Huang, when she was an operator in Shanghai.
He explained the two types.
“A commercial fixer connects people with money to those who control resources, arranges financing, and helps transactions overcome commercial or political obstacles,” he wrote on Substack. This role does not require in-depth professional expertise: “Their most valuable asset is access.”
Meanwhile, a “white glove” “… performs a more specific function: acting on behalf of others while concealing the identities or interests of the real principals behind a transaction,” Mr. Shum, now a British resident who has testified before Congress about the perils of conducting business in China, continued.
Per Mr. Shum’s narrative, Ms. Huang’s proximity to Mr. Huang was an asset that she “repeatedly offered to investors as a commercial advantage.”
Whether, and to what extent, that advantage was offered to competing companies, to Beijing officialdom, or to other actors is currently unknown.
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