The Jensen defenders are seizing on Alice Huang uncertainty

Jensen Huang's relationship with Alice Huang remains under investigation. CTI via REUTERS TV Was Alice Huang a Chinese spy?Some government officials have said that question remains unresolved — and now some of Jensen Huang's defenders are rallying around the uncertainty.Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said Friday on X that a petition to reinstate Jensen Huang as CEO of Nvidia was "underway" and "I'm signing it too."Tech investor Gavin Baker said said on X that Nvidia's board "should have waited for their own investigation to finish" before ousting the cofounder after he admitted to an affair."Shareholders, employees and partners overwhelmingly support Jensen," Baker, the managing partner of Atreides Management, wrote. In a separate post, he wrote that he thinks Jensen Huang could be rehired. David Sacks (pictures on the far right) at a White House event with then-Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Jacquelyn Martin/AP The Nvidia CEO resigned Thursday following bombshell reports that he had an affair with Megaspeed executive Alice Huang and that some US officials had concluded she was a Chinese intelligence asset gathering information for Beijing.A CNN report published Thursday said that, according to multiple unnamed sources, the intelligence gathered on Alice Huang so far does not prove she was acting as a spy for the Chinese government. The report said US officials are divided over the strength of the evidence tying Alice Huang to Chinese intelligence. China has repeatedly denied the spying allegations.Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Thursday — hours after Jensen Huang resigned — that he, the Justice Department, and FBI Director Kash Patel had reached "no conclusions" about who former Megaspeed executive Alice Huang "is or is not.""Your first question assumes something that I have never said and that I don't know to be true. So you assumed that DOJ learns that she is, in fact, a spy. I'm not — nobody said that. I certainly haven't said that," Blanche said in response to a reporter's question about Alice Huang. Blanche added that the DOJ is investigating whether she was acting as a Chinese spy.When asked by ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith whether Jensen Huang should have resigned, President Donald Trump suggested it was unclear whether Alice Huang was a spy."The big thing is, was the woman a spy? And I don't know if that's been determined yet," Trump said. "But if the woman was a spy, yes. If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different."All this has energized some of Jensen Huang's allies.Venture capitalist David Sacks — who previously served as Trump's AI czar — argued in a post on X that the "spy narrative is collapsing already."Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney also threw his weight behind the Nvidia founder, saying the uncertainty over the spying allegations raises "serious corporate governance issues."Meanwhile, some Nvidia employees urged the board to bring him back. Wired reported that an internal "suggestion box" post received more than 1,600 comments, including some asking the company to restore Jensen Huang as CEO.It's hardly a universal view.CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Kramer highlighted reports that said the former CEO had two other extramarital relationships with Nvidia employees, including one with the company's vice president of healthcare, who was his direct report."How venal, how disgusting are some that they are willing to look away from a ceo who is having a relationship with a subordinate simply because he is brilliant or a money-maker," Kramer wrote on X Friday. "No one was a bigger defender of Jensen than I was but there are rules about sex with subordinates. Just because someone is brilliant doesn't mean he can do what he wants."Megaspeed under scrutinyMegaspeed, the Singapore-based data center company where Alice Huang was a top exec has drawn US scrutiny over allegations that it helped divert restricted Nvidia chips to Chinese customers. Megaspeed has denied any wrongdoing.Singapore said it had conducted its own investigation into Megaspeed, which did not examine potential espionage, and briefly impounded Alice Huang's passport during the probe. Singapore also said it barred her from re-entering the country after the government said that she provided inaccurate information to police to downplay her role in MegaspeedBloomberg reported Friday that a Chinese company founded by Alice Huang obtained smuggled AI chips that were then installed at a Shanghai data center connected to Megaspeed. The latest on Jensen Huang's ouster from Nvidia and what it means for the company's future Read next Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Natalie is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Business News team covering the AI and data center boom.She was previously on BI's Legal Affairs team, where she handled major cases coming out of state and federal court, as well as bankruptcy. Her coverage often focused on stories at the intersection of law, business, politics, and technology. Natalie has covered Donald Trump’s criminal and civil cases, the wave of lawsuits against the second Trump administration, the indictment and criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the legal battles facing Elon Musk and his companies. Natalie came to Business Insider in June 2021 as a breaking news reporter, focusing on the most interesting angles on the day's trending news. Natalie largely drove BI’s coverage around the fatal “Rust” shooting involving Alec Baldwin and the disappearance and murder of Gabby Petito.Prior to joining BI, Natalie worked for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and The Brooklyn Paper. She has an extensive background covering crime and courts. During her more than 12-year journalism career, she did a stint covering the police beat out of the New York Police Department's headquarters. Natalie, a Brooklyn native, graduated from Brooklyn College in 2012 with a degree in journalism. Jensen Scandal AI