Good morning. Yesterday, tech stocks rebounded, yet NVIDIA's market value evaporated by approximately $230 billion. All three major U.S. stock indices rose by more than 2%.
As for NVIDIA? After the company's CEO, Jensen Huang, admitted to having an extramarital affair with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy, it sparked a plethora of AI generated memes. The world is still trying to come to terms with all this, but rest assured, congressional hearings are definitely on the horizon. For more tech news, read on. Wishing you a productive day today. – Andrew Nusca
Postscript: Will Jensen Huang keep his job? Early signs indicate... yes.
Any ideas? Suggestions? Exclusive tips? Leave me a message.
Headline Story
NVIDIA “can serve China very well,” CEO said about Fortune last month
As there is new scrutiny over Jensen Huang's dealings with China and his views on the U.S. policy of restricting the export of advanced AI chips, NVIDIA CEO has admitted to having an extramarital affair with a woman who is reportedly considered a Chinese spy by a U.S. intelligence agency.
For many years, the United States has restricted the sale of NVIDIA's advanced chips to China on the grounds of national security.
Before these allegations surfaced, in an interview conducted last month by Fortune, Jensen Huang stated that he believed this chip manufacturer “could serve China very well.” He also said that NVIDIA has “huge and growing” opportunities in China.
Jensen Huang was interviewed by Fortune in mid-October, at a time when The New York Times had not yet reported that American officials had identified this woman Alice Huang — who has no familial relation to NVIDIA CEO — as a Chinese intelligence asset. It is still unclear how long this relationship lasted, but photos circulating online show that the two appeared together in Taipei as early as June 2024.
When asked whether he expected sales in China to recover, Jensen Huang stated in October that there would be a "natural tension" between Washington and Beijing, and that this "would last for a long time." He also added that NVIDIA would not provide any guidance regarding sales figures for China.
Since August 2025, the company has not included China in its revenue forecasts, citing high levels of regulatory uncertainty in both countries.
The United States does not allow NVIDIA to sell its most advanced AI chips to China, but has granted an export license to the company, permitting it to sell older models of GPU. GPU is a dedicated chip used for AI and computer graphics applications.
On the other hand, Beijing has also officially attempted to prevent its major technology companies from purchasing NVIDIA chips in order to promote the demand for domestic alternatives.
Nevertheless, Jensen Huang told Fortune that he is optimistic about the Chinese market. “I believe that the opportunities in China are huge and growing, just like the global AI market, which is also huge and growing,” said Jensen Huang. “We can serve the local market well. We can compete and win as much of the US AI market as possible, while also providing computing resources, which is very important for their economy.”
China has long been a challenge for NVIDIA. As early as 2022, the Biden administration imposed export controls, prohibiting NVIDIA from selling its most advanced AI chips to China, with the aim of slowing down Beijing's progress in AI and its potential military applications.
NVIDIA designed downgraded chips for the Chinese market, but subsequent changes in regulations also halted the sales of many of these products.
Thereafter, Jensen Huang has been actively pursuing opportunities to expand into the Chinese market. In October 2025, after NVIDIA was kept out of the market due to export controls and countermeasures taken by Beijing, he complained that the company's market share in China had dropped from 95% to 0%.
In December 2025, President Trump reversed some of the restrictions implemented during Biden's tenure, allowing NVIDIA to ship its H200 chips to approved Chinese customers—chips that are designed to comply with U.S. export control regulations—and the U.S. government will take a 25% cut from these sales. This decision was made after months of lobbying by Jensen Huang; just a few days before the announcement, he also met with Trump to discuss export control issues.
In October, Jensen Huang told Fortune that NVIDIA can prioritize serving American customers while still being competitive overseas.
"The United States recognizes that since this technology was invented in the U.S., and since we are an American company, we should provide the best, fastest, and most products to American companies, which is indeed what we do. However, we should also compete," Jensen Huang stated to Fortune. "The AI market is like a five-layer cake, and the U.S. should compete on every layer, not just at the model level." — Beatrice Nolan
Blind box
"They found themselves on the day of liquidation, and it was a sudden moment, perhaps even one that was forced upon them."
Read the full story here.
Overview
- Jensen Huang's son-in-law may play an important role in the company's succession plan.
- The new Claude Fable and Mythos models of Anthropic have a 20% lower cost than the GPT-6 and Astra models of OpenAI.
- Fireworks AI reveals that hackers accessed some customer data in the past month.
- Tesla's Elon Musk stated, "The opportunity cost of complexity is far outweighed by the value of increasing production volume."
- Google launches two products that will be released in 2027: 8tx for confidential inference, and 8i for "ultra-large context windows".
- France attributed cyberattacks in October targeting commercial refrigerators and freezers to Iran.
- Uber has launched an in-app parking reservation tool in 15 American cities, including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
- Spines raised $64 million to utilize AI agents for automated book publishing.
- Adobe and Disney have agreed to create proprietary, "artist-led" generative AI models.
Final Strike
I would like to sincerely apologize to Joseph Gordon - Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, and Moz.
