Key points
- House chairmen seek a Jensen Huang briefing
- Nvidia's reply to the House letter
- Nvidia's briefing date and the new Congress
Three House Republican chairmen have asked Nvidia (NVDA) chief executive Jensen Huang for a closed-door briefing on November 18, the day after the company is scheduled to report earnings.
They want to discuss Nvidia's defenses against foreign espionage and Jensen Huang's interactions with Alice Huang, a former executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed. US officials concluded that Alice Huang was a Chinese intelligence asset, The New York Times reported.
Nvidia shares closed down 9.26% at $181.60 on November 5, the day the Nasdaq Composite entered a correction. The stock was already down 4.0% at 9:45 a.m. ET, hours before Reuters reported the letter.
The chairmen want an answer by November 11
Brian Mast of the Foreign Affairs Committee, John Moolenaar of the Select Committee on the CCP, and Rick Crawford of the Intelligence Committee signed the letter, dated November 4. They asked Jensen Huang to appear in room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building and gave him until November 11 to accept the date or propose another one.
"It is vital that Congress determines the extent to which U.S. national security has been placed at risk," the chairmen wrote. They described their concern as "PRC infiltration and access to cutting-edge U.S. technology."
The letter cites "recent reports" and calls Alice Huang a "publicly reported People's Republic of China (PRC) intelligence asset." It doesn't name The Times or mention President Donald Trump. It doesn't accuse Jensen Huang of wrongdoing or mention a subpoena.
The letter doesn't mention export controls, chip sales, or cloud access.
Nvidia didn't directly respond when asked about the letter or the briefing. A spokesperson said regional cloud customers receive "ordinary business information" and "zero information relevant to national security."
The requested date falls in the current Congress
Any alternative date must fall on "a session day of the 119th Congress," the letter says. That Congress ends on January 3, 2027. The letter doesn't address what would happen after that.
Democrats won control of the House and Senate in the November 3 midterms and will take over congressional committees in January. All three signers are Republicans. Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on Foreign Affairs, is listed on the letterhead but didn't sign.
What The Times reported, and the other cloud questions
The Times reported on October 29 that US intelligence determined Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen, was funneling information to Beijing and had developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang. The two aren't related. Trump was briefed about a year ago and chose not to act, the report said.
Officials initially didn't believe Jensen Huang knew about her suspected intelligence gathering, and it's unclear whether that view has changed, The Times said, as we reported on October 29. Nvidia has called his interactions with her "not unusual or unexpected." Trump said on October 31 that he "didn't know about the specific thing" and that the US was looking at the report "very closely."
Nvidia describes Megaspeed as one of its regional cloud customers. The letter arrived the same week as two other reports about Chinese access to Nvidia chips through cloud companies. The House letter mentions neither.
The Financial Times reported on November 3 that Nvidia is telling cloud partners that at least 51% of their services must go to customers outside China under new contracts. Nvidia neither confirmed nor denied that report.
CNBC reported on November 5 that Moonshot AI, the Chinese lab behind the Kimi models, has discussed renting Nvidia's Blackwell chips in Europe. CNBC did not report a signed deal. That report came a day after the date on the House letter.
