Report: Trump Shelved China Spy Warning Partly Over Nvidia Sales

President Donald Trump took no action after a warning of suspected Chinese espionage involving Nvidia's chief executive, partly over chip-sales concerns, according to a New York Times investigation. ^[1]

US intelligence agencies concluded that a former senior executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud company, was passing information to Beijing and had developed close ties to Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, according to people briefed on classified surveillance who spoke to the Times. ^[1]

Those people told the Times that Trump received a briefing about a year earlier concerning someone with direct access to Huang. They said concern about disrupting Nvidia's sales and the US-China trade relationship was among his reasons for taking no action. ^[1]

Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said Huang's interactions with the former executive were not unusual, describing meetings with customers as part of a chief executive's work. The company says cloud customers received ordinary business information, not sensitive trade secrets or information relevant to national security. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Chang said the accusations against the former executive were baseless, calling them "groundless smears and slanders", according to the Times account. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, The Hill said. ^{[1] [3]}

The underlying intelligence has not been made public or independently confirmed. The people cited by the Times did not specify what information they believed reached Beijing, and their account does not establish that Trump acted specifically to protect Nvidia's share price. ^[1]

Nvidia defends customer access

The company's response challenges the suggestion that access to Huang necessarily offered access to protected information. Meeting a supplier's chief executive is a normal business activity. Establishing espionage would require evidence about what someone obtained, what they passed on and for whom they were acting.

According to the Times sources, investigators suspected the executive may have used her Megaspeed position and relationship with Huang to obtain information about Nvidia. They also suspected a possible effort to influence Trump's thinking on AI. Those are investigators' suspicions, not publicly established findings. ^[1]

Nvidia also said it was confident the US government would tell the company if it believed someone posed a threat to American industry. According to The Hill, the company said it frequently receives government updates about parties and entities of concern. ^{[2] [3]}

That response makes government notification an important part of the case. The allegation concerns someone with access to a company chief, while the company says it expects warnings from Washington about security threats. Whether Huang received such a warning would help establish how the intelligence was handled beyond the presidential briefing.

A chip investigation already under way

The scrutiny of Megaspeed predates the reported warning about access to Huang. According to the Times, the US government had been investigating the company since 2024 over suspicions that it helped Chinese users obtain access to restricted Nvidia hardware. ^[1]

The investigation examined whether Megaspeed was routing chips through data centres in Malaysia and Indonesia that appeared to serve customers in China, the Times said. That places the dispute across several jurisdictions, with the destination of computing power as important as the location of the machines. ^[1]

Nvidia disputes the diversion allegations. It said they had been investigated and debunked the previous year, and that its own investigation found no evidence of diversion. ^{[1] [2]}

The Times account says US scrutiny nevertheless continued. It reported that the Justice Department took over the Commerce Department's investigation earlier in 2026 and that Megaspeed remained under investigation. A company's internal finding and an ongoing government inquiry can coexist, neither settles the other's conclusions. ^{[1] [2]}

The Times also reported that the former executive's name had been removed from Megaspeed corporate documents after US scrutiny increased. Her current connection to the business was unclear. A change in corporate records alone does not establish why it occurred. ^[1]

Where sales meet security

US officials' concern, according to the Times, was that advanced Nvidia chips reaching Chinese users could support weapons development, surveillance and stronger AI capabilities. ^[1]

Washington wants a leading American chip supplier to succeed while limiting what some customers can buy.

Economic consequences belong in presidential decisions. They cannot establish whether an intelligence assessment is sound. If sales concerns helped determine the response here, the administration should explain what security assessment justified that choice.

The next substantive development would be an account from the White House of the briefing and its response, or a public step in the Justice Department inquiry. For Nvidia, the immediate issue is whether the government will identify a threat that the company says it expects Washington to disclose. ^{[1] [2] [3]}