'The most insane story' rocks Big Tech and has national security implications for Washington

An earthquake has rocked the worl. of big tech and the aftershocks arare. being felt from Silicon Valley to Washington. and ultimately to China, with serious implications for America's national. security. NVIDIA, the computer chip maker powering. the artificial intelligence boom. around the world announced today. that its long-time executive, Jensen Wong, has stepped down as the company's president, CEO and board member effective immediately. That follows reports by the New York Times. citing multiple sources INSIDE NVIDIA THAT. WANG ENGAGED IN EXTRA MARITAL AFFAIRS.

ONE OF THEM WAS WITH A SUSPECTED. CHINESE SPY WHOSE COMPANY IN. SINGAPORE IS UNDER INVESTIGATION. FOR ALLEGEDLY SIDES STEPPING U .S. EXPORT CONTROLS TO illegally funnel. ultra powerful NVIDIA chips to government. agencies in China. The Chinese government has called. these allegations smears, a confidant of President Trump. and a tech pioneer who steered. NVIDIA to a record $5 trillion. dollar stock valuation just last month. Wang has now agreed to testify before Congress, according to the chair.

of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Lawmakers from both parties want him to. answer important questions. about what he knew and just as important, what the Trump administration knew. about his indiscretions. Wong co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and ran it. until today. NVIDIA made a name for itself, manufacturing computer chips that power. the intensive graphics that were used. in video games. Then in the 2010s, Wang pivoted its company. into making chips that could harness. the extra computational power needed to run AI, which led to explosive growth for NVIDIA.

Today, almost every AI system depends. on NVIDIA's chips, and most Americans interface. with its computational power one way. or another whenever they use a phone. or a computer. But Wong didn't run NVIDIA like other CEOs. of large publicly traded companies. He said to have concentrated. decision-making in his office with 60. executives. reporting directly to him. But his relationship with President Trump. and with the Chinese make this a national. security issue in Washington. Wang is said to have appealed to.

Trump to ease export controls on China, a huge lucrative market for AI chips that could. easily fall. into the hands of its military. and intelligence agencies. Reports indicate that a Singapore. based firm called Megaspeed. purchased AI equipment from NVIDIA to power data. centers. across Southeast Asia serving. Chinese commercial clients. But U .S. investigators worried that it could be a front. company involved in funneling equipment to. China itself in violation of U .S. export controls. Reports since suggest that Megaspeed's.

corporate headquarters in Singapore. and its subsidiary offices in neighboring countries. are mostly vacant. or occupied by other tenants. Megaspeed says it will cooperate with U .S. government investigations. This week, Jensen Wong admitted to. being unfaithful. to his wife after reports surfaced. of his intimate relationship. with a Megaspeed executive known as Alice U .S. Wang, no relation to Jensen Wang. The Times reported that the U .S. government had concluded that she was a spy. working on behalf of the Chinese government. According to the Times, the U .S.

opened an investigation into Megaspeed. in 2024 when it started importing billions. of dollars worth of NVIDIA AI equipment. into Malaysia. Initially, the Commerce Department was. leading. that investigation. Axios reports, however, citing multiple sources. that Commerce. Secretary Howard Lutnick was sent. a highly classified memo warning. about NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong's relationship. with suspected Chinese spy Alice Wong. But then in mid-2025, according to the Times, the case was abruptly transferred.

to the Justice Department. The shift came after Commerce Department. investigators working on the case received. an email from NVIDIA's general counsel seeking. information about the inquiry into Megaspeed. Well, a couple of months later, Jensen Wang committed $25 million to Donald. Trump's White House ballroom expansion project. That's according to The Washington Post. NVIDIA said the company's donation was, quote, independent of any business interest. Soon afterward, in December of 2025, Trump agreed to let Nvidia sell its most.

advanced chip to approved customers. in China in exchange for the U .S. government getting a 25 % cut of. OF THE SALES, BUT THEN LAST SPRING, THE. TIMES REPORTS THAT THE SECRETARY OF STATE, MARCO RUBIO, OVERSAW THE DRAFTING OF AN. INTELLIGENCE MEMO THAT WARNED TRUMP AND. HIS TOP CABINET OFFICIALS. OF THE INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT THAT. ALICE WONG WAS A HE SAID HE DIDN'T KNOW. ABOUT THE NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS. WHEN HE INVITED Jensen Wang TO JOIN HIM ON A. TRIP TO CHINA IN MAY.

THERE'S A LOT TO UNPACK HERE. JOINING ME, I'VE BEEN I'VE BEEN TALKING. TO DAVID ABOUT. THIS ALL DAY. DAVID WROTE MSNOW SENIOR NATIONAL. SECURITY REPORTER AS WELL AS ROGER MACNAMY A. LONGTIME TECH INVESTOR TURNED CRITIC OF THE. INDUSTRY AND FORMER ADVISER to Mark Zuckerberg. He's also an executive producer. of The Social Reckoning and the author. of the bestseller, Zucked, Waking Up to the Facebook. Catastrophe. Gentlemen, good to see you this evening. David, help me with this story. because there's a lot going on here. But in the end, if you forget all about it, NVIDIA and AI and all this, there's two things to. remember. Jensen Wang is AI. He's not kind of peripheral.

to AI. AI doesn't exist without NVIDIA and Jensen WANG, AND DONALD TRUMP IS TIGHT WITH Jensen WANG. THAT MAKES HIM AN ASTOUNDING TARGET FOR. CHINA, THAT IF CHINA CAN GET WANG. TO SHARE WITH THEM, WHAT ARE his conversations with President Trump, like what are President Trump's views regarding. tariffs on China? What are President Trump's views. on how to regulate AI? That's of enormous value with a holy grail.

of intelligence. So this is a little different. than what we'd normally. WE HAVE AN OLIGARCH CLOSE TO VLADIMIR PUTIN, AND THAT PERSON CAN TELL US ABOUT WHAT PUTIN. REALLY THINKS ABOUT THE WAR IN UKRAINE. And it's very, very hard to get in the. inner circle. And that's what might have happened here. And then second, Huang has this tremendous. knowledge.

of the development of these chips. that are so valuable. He knows he's talking to a lot. of these AI companies about their strategy. FOR THE NEXT STEPS IN A .I. SO THERE IS VALUE THERE IN TERMS. OF THE INDUSTRIAL STUFF, THE COMMERCIAL INFORMATION THAT CAN. HELP THE CHINESE. AND THEN THE SORT OF OTHER PART OF IT. SO THAT'S ENOUGH THAT HE HAD A. The big questions you listed, many of them were the response. from the Trump administration. to this information that he was. having this affair with her. Yeah. How did how did that get.

muddled? If they knew something was up. and that this woman is spending time. with him and she's got an interest. that might be on behalf. of the Chinese government. How did this all get how did the messaging get. modeled on this one? Roger, what do you make of this? So I think this is the most insane story. of my 44-year career in technology investing. I mean, Jensen Wong, as you said, it really is. saying something. He really is the embodiment of AI. and it is impossible for the industry. to have arrived where it is today, at the scale it's at today,

without Jensen Wong specifically doing. the things he did. And I think that if you're an investor in NVIDIA, if you believe in AI, his departure is a massive disruption. at a minimum and potentially catastrophic. for the industry. But let's talk about this national. security question, because I think I'm going to push back. on David just a little bit. in the following way. You know, I cannot believe they would. go. to all that trouble to try to get. Jensen Long's opinion. of what Trump was saying about AI.

And the reason I say that is. that Trump was very much aligned with Jensen, and their goal was to have the right to. sell NVIDIA GPUs, their processors in China. And that is in keeping with a long American. tradition. We sell Boeing aircraft to China. We sold all the Intel processors. during personal computers. We sell Coca-Cola. And we have always believed as a country that the most. effective way to maintain peace. and to maximize our economic.

value is to sell to everybody, become the industry standard. and dominate the markets. The problem with the people who. favor the export controls is. that their argument is that they want to limit. China's. ability to import these chips,

the huge problem is that the Chinese want to. build their own competitor NVIDIA. In order to do that, they need Chinese companies. to use Chinese. semiconductors. So China itself has been restricting the use. of these parts, and that's the part that doesn't. make any sense to me. If this woman is a spy, what's going on with. China's restrictions. on the importing of video processors?

Because that's the thing that I just don't get. There's something about this that's really fishy. What this looks like to me is an internecine. battle inside the White House, or at least inside washington. between china hawks who want to restrict. china's ability to get these things. which in my mind is nuts because. if china develops their own thing they're doing. a thing called open source and open weight ai. which is basically much cheaper version. of what open ai and anthropic do one you know. one tenth the price and if they develop.

that they're just going to sell that to. the whole world and they're going. to kill open ai and anthropic. and so i would think a much better. strategy would be get them addicted to nvidia. with all the cost structure implications built. into that that would keep american companies. in the lead in everything whereas. as we're going now and again i think this was. you know scott besant winning out. over howard lutnik relative to this particular. battle and you know i'd look at this thing.

and go this was a big problem. without the the spy thing to me the spy thing. is like i mean that may be true look i'm not. an expert on this. stuff but it doesn't actually make sense. to me and strategically i mean. weirdly it's the only time in my life. i've ever agreed with trump and lutnik. on anything but i think that the notion. of selling this technology to the chinese. is actually the best thing for america it maximizes. our exports. it maximizes our control our influence. all those things and you know i think. jensen was right about that.

I mean, I think he was totally wrong. about his personal behavior. And I think. it's, you know, abhorrent and I feel. horrible for Mrs. Wong.