Nvidia hires leading US law firm to investigate Jensen Huang’s relationship

Nvidia hires leading US law firm to investigate Jensen Huang’s relationship Move comes as chipmaker reels from reports its CEO was having an affair with an alleged Chinese spy

Nvidia has appointed a leading US law firm to conduct a “thorough and independent” investigation into the relationship between its chief executive, Jensen Huang, and an alleged Chinese spy .

The $4.1tn (£3tn) chipmaker has hired New York-based Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz for the investigation, which will be led by the Wachtell partner Joon Kim. Wachtell’s website describes Kim, a former government prosecutor in New York, as a specialist in areas including internal investigations, white-collar criminal and regulatory defence, and crisis management.

Nvidia did not give a timeframe for the investigation but the company has said Huang will continue to lead the business he co-founded “without interruption”.

The company is reeling from an espionage scandal after reports that its chief executive had been having an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, Alice Huang, who was also an Nvidia customer.

The US ambassador to China , David Perdue, said: “The situation with Nvidia is another reminder that we have to stay diligent.

“National security is part of this economic conversation because economic security is national security. And so, what we’re doing with China is bumpy right now,” he told Bloomberg Television.

Nvidia had at first denied an improper relationship with the Chinese citizen, who is no relation to the Nvidia boss, but Huang then admitted on Sunday he had been unfaithful to his wife – without referring directly to Ms Huang.

On the same day Nvidia announced an investigation into reports that Huang “has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort”. The scandal has wiped $430bn off Nvidia’s value as shareholders gauge the potential impact of the scandal on a company and an executive who are synonymous with the AI boom.

Wachtell is one of the most prestigious corporate law firms in the US. Its founding partner Martin Lipton invented the “poison pill defence” in the 1980s, a corporate gambit that helps companies ward off hostile takeovers.

Technically called the “shareholder rights plan”, the poison pill allowed investors to buy more shares at a discount if one shareholder acquired a certain percentage of the company’s stock. This made it harder for corporate raiders to acquire a company without the board’s approval.