Trump received intelligence about Nvidia CEO Chinese spy incident ahead of trip to Beijing - report

The New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump received intelligence in May about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's romantic relationship with a woman suspected of spying for China, before Huang joined the presidential visit to Beijing. Trump later denied knowledge of the matter. Nvidia launched an independent probe; shares fell 4%.

US President Donald Trump received intelligence about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's ties to a woman suspected of spying for China before Huang joined the presidential visit to Beijing, The New York Times reported on Tuesday citing officials familiar with the matter. According to the NYT, Trump received sensitive intelligence in May about a romantic relationship between Huang and a woman whom US intelligence officials concluded was working for China's Ministry of State Security. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio was involved in preparing a classified intelligence document on the matter, which was distributed to senior administration officials before the presidential visit to Beijing. This was at least the second time in seven months that Trump had been informed about the affair. Huang joined the presidential visit to China at Trump's invitation, after initially being excluded from the list of senior business executives invited to accompany him. On Monday, Trump was asked at a press conference whether he had known about the suspicious ties during his visit to China in May. "No, I hadn't heard about it then," the president replied, contradicting reports indicating that he had already received intelligence about the matter. Trump said he had spoken with Huang and asked whether he knew that the woman with whom he had been involved was suspected of espionage. According to Trump, the Nvidia CEO replied that he had not been aware of the allegations. The president expressed confidence in Huang's account. Following the revelations, Nvidia announced that it had launched an independent investigation into the matter. The company said it had no reason to believe that its trade secrets or US national security had been compromised. Nvidia shares fell more than 4% during trading on Monday. China rejected the allegations of espionage, describing them as baseless.