The gap between what President Donald Trump says he knew and what officials say he was told has become the central question surrounding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s participation in Trump’s May trip to China.
Asked whether he had been informed about intelligence concerns involving Huang before the trip, Trump said, “No, I didn’t hear about it then,” according to The New York Times.
A U.S. official and people familiar with the matter told The New York Times a different account: Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed Trump aboard Air Force One after learning Huang would join the presidential delegation. Trump was reportedly not persuaded by the warning and proceeded with the plan.
The briefing, as described by those sources, followed a confidential memo that Rubio reportedly oversaw and circulated to senior administration officials before the China trip. That memo drew on intelligence in which U.S. officials reportedly assessed that Alice Huang, a Chinese national associated with Singapore-based Megaspeed, had been recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security. The same intelligence described a close relationship between Alice Huang and Jensen Huang. No publicly reported criminal charge or court finding against Alice Huang was identified in available reporting.
According to The New York Times, Huang was not on the original delegation list. Trump invited him to board Air Force One during a refueling stop in Alaska, and Huang reportedly spent most of the flight in a separate section of the aircraft and saw Trump only briefly.
Earlier reporting cited by the BBC indicates Trump had also received a briefing roughly a year before the May trip about the same intelligence concerns. No publicly reported action followed at that time.
Nvidia’s board announced an independent investigation after reports described Huang as the target of a foreign intelligence effort. The inquiry will be overseen by a committee of independent directors assisted by outside counsel. “While the Board has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, the Board’s inquiry will examine all available information,” the board said, according to the Associated Press.
Huang has committed to cooperating with the review. After initially describing Alice Huang as a routine customer contact, he later acknowledged a more intimate relationship, according to reporting from major news organizations.
Megaspeed reportedly purchased advanced Nvidia chips and operates data centers in Southeast Asia. That setup has drawn scrutiny because Chinese companies can sometimes access restricted computing capacity through third-country facilities. The episode sits within an ongoing U.S. policy debate over whether to permit broader Nvidia chip sales to China.
Trump has publicly defended Huang, saying Huang told him he had not known Alice Huang was a spy and that he found that account credible, according to The New York Times.
The White House challenged the underlying reporting without specifying which claims it disputed. The State Department declined to comment. The contradiction between Trump’s public denial and the reported account of an Air Force One briefing remains unresolved in the public record.
