Listen: The evidence on the Jensen Huang leak points to a chip-export fight

The sudden downfall of Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has triggered intense speculation about who leaked the damaging intelligence, and why. We investigated the timing of the scandal and tested several explanations. The strongest evidence points to an internal battle within the Trump administration over chip export controls to China. For months, senior officials clashed over whether to crack down on a Singapore-based company called Megaspeed, which was suspected of diverting restricted Nvidia technology to Beijing. Huang was the tech industry's most influential lobbyist against these tighter rules. When the New York Times published leaked details of Huang's relationship with a Megaspeed executive, it effectively destroyed his credibility on Capitol Hill. While some suspected the leak was tied to Huang's strong advocacy for open-source artificial intelligence, we found weak evidence for this theory. The classified memos about his relationship had been circulating long before his high-profile push for open-weight models. Ultimately, the scandal achieved what national security hardliners wanted. Huang resigned, Nvidia lost nearly five hundred billion dollars in market value, and the path is now clear for Congress to tighten chip exports. The identity of the leaker remains unknown, but the political impact of the timing is unmistakable.