WASHINGTON — President Trump called Jensen Huang on Monday to check on him and said the embattled CEO of Nvidia told him that he had no idea the Chinese honeypot he had an affair with was a spy.
“I did speak to him today just to see if he’s feeling all right,” Trump told reporters in the White House briefing room.
“He said he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy. I asked him that question. Did you have any idea that she was a spy? He said I had no idea that she was a spy, and I really believe him.”
Jensen Huang admitted to an affair with Alice Huang — no relation — who is suspected of spying for China.
Trump — who on Sunday defended Huang as an “honorable guy” — frequently phones the tech giant, once catching him on stage during a live summit in Los Angeles.
The two men “have become good friends,” a source close to them told The Post.
Another source said Huang, 63, would brag about his close relationship with the president, 80.
“And Jensen has repeatedly lied about his relationship with Ms. Huang,” the person noted.
Alice Huang was an executive at Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based company facing claims it was illicitly shipping advanced Nvidia computer chips into China. The Trump administration approved the limited sale of those chips to certain Chinese companies and the US is supposed to get a 25% cut of each sale.
China has denied she was committing corporate espionage on its behalf. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Monday that “the so-called Chinese spy allegation is unsubstantiated. It is nothing but smears against China.”
Huang has worked hard to curry favor with the president, even donating $25 million toward the cost of building his massive ballroom, as he lobbied the US government to allow his company entry into China.
Like other wealthy and influential friends, Trump has dazzled Huang with invites to Mar-a-Lago and the White House.
Jensen missed the president’s second inauguration in January 2025 but quickly flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. His wooing paid off and he was able to personally lobby Trump on allowing the limited sale of advanced Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) to approved Chinese companies.
He became a regular at high-profile events.
Huang and his wife were seated at the head table with the president and first lady Melania Trump at the September state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump was personally involved in selecting the guest list for that dinner, a source familiar with the planning told The Post.
Additionally, Huang leaned on his friendship with the president when his invitation to the April state dinner for King Charles arrived without a plus-one, meaning he couldn’t bring his wife. When White House staff told him there were no plus ones, he called Trump and made a personal appeal, getting Lori Huang on the list and bumping a senior administration official off of it, multiple administration sources told The Post.
And when Trump went to China in May, inviting several tech CEOs to come along, he personally called Huang to offer him a ride on Air Force One. When Huang couldn’t make it to Washington, DC, in time for departure, he took his private plane to Alaska to join the president during his refueling stop in Anchorage.
Dressed in his signature black and carrying only a backpack, Jensen boarded the presidential plane without an entourage, pausing to speak with Trump’s son Eric, who was also on the trip, as he boarded.
The Nvidia CEO is also a regular at the White House, including in the Oval Office when Trump was announcing an expansion of Dulles airport in July. As the president spoke, standing in a corner taking photos on his cell phone was Huang.
He had a prime seat at Trump’s side at the September 29th meeting on AI policy, alongside other technology executives. And the president awarded him the National Medal of Science last month.
He stays close to Trump, literally, traveling to the Middle East for Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in May 2025, then to London to join the president at Windsor Castle for a state dinner with King Charles that September.
Trump, at a meeting with then-British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saw the CEO in the audience on that trip and teasingly told him: “You’re taking over the world Jensen. I don’t know what you’re doing here. I hope you’re right.”
Trump has repeatedly defended the CEO, saying on Monday he was “amazed” by Huang’s affair admission because he sees him “as a very high quality person.”
The president said the FBI was investigating the matter but predicted Jensen would come out of it just fine.
“He’ll look into it. I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he’ll be in good shape,” he said.
The president expressed confidence that nothing criminal would be found in the investigations. Nvidia is also conducting an internal probe.
“I hope there’s no problem. If there is a problem, we’ll let you know about it,” Trump said.
Trump added that Jensen, who has two children with his wife of 41 years, is “suffering greatly.”
“I believe he’s suffering greatly, more so because of his family, his wife, who he loves, and his family. But he is definitely suffering,” the president said.
Trump declined to say when he learned Huang was having an affair with a woman who was thought to be a spy. But he did say he didn’t know about it when Jensen accompanied him to China in May.
“No, I didn’t hear about it then,” the president said.