The US intelligence community is still trying to establish whether Alice Huang, the businesswoman at the centre of the scandal that toppled Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, was spying for China.
The intelligence gathered on her so far does not prove she was acting as a spy for Beijing, CNN reported, citing multiple sources.
US officials reportedly disagree on how strong the evidence is that she was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security. The FBI has been investigating Huang's relationship with her for at least a year, but Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Thursday that "no conclusions" have been reached by the Justice Department, himself or FBI director Kash Patel about "who she is or is not".
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US President Donald Trump also hedged, saying he did not know whether the question had been determined. "If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different," he said.
Officials Split
According to CNN, some officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence consider the label "Chinese spy" inaccurate and over-torqued. A source told the outlet that CIA officials are also unconvinced that the intercepted communications show she was funnelling information to Beijing.
Other Trump administration officials reportedly told it strains credulity that a successful Chinese businesswoman working with one of America's most powerful companies was not acting for the Chinese government, given that Chinese law can compel citizens to assist state intelligence.
The FBI has been particularly suspicious of her move from Chinese state television journalist to a businesswoman with large purchasing power.
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One alarming development, a person familiar with the investigation told, was intercepted communications suggesting someone close to Huang or Nvidia was a source of information that ended up in Chinese intelligence streams.
Chips Probe And Counterintelligence Debate
Alice Huang's Singapore-based company, Megaspeed, is a major buyer of Nvidia chips. A person briefed on the matter told the outlet that the Justice and Commerce departments opened an investigation into the firm in 2024 as part of a wider probe into shell companies suspected of diverting restricted chips to China. Questions are now being asked inside the White House over why Commerce did not put Megaspeed on its entity list.
A former Commerce official told that no intelligence operation was needed to achieve that outcome, noting that Jensen Huang has publicly argued for selling more chips to China.
A former senior counterintelligence official said "a lot of these people are guilty of just being Chinese", while Joshua Hodges of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said the Chinese are adept at using people "wittingly and unwittingly".
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