Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and US President Donald Trump (File photo)

TOI correspondent in Washington: In Washington, national security issues usually require a healthy dose of suspicion, particularly where China is concerned. But in a remarkable display of trust, US President Donald Trump is repeatedly vouching for Nvidia chief Jensen Huang following disclosures that he may have been ensnared in a Chinese honey-trap.Speaking at the White House on Monday after revealing he had spoken to Huang, Trump described him as “a great, brilliant person, and we want to protect our brilliant people.” Asked whether Huang knew that the woman he was having an affair with was allegedly a Chinese intelligence operative, Trump recounted asking him directly. ” He said, ‘I had no idea that she was a spy.’ And I really believe him.” He also said Huang was “suffering greatly,” particularly because of the effect on his family.On the FBI investigation, Trump offered reassurance rather than alarm: “I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he’ll be in good shape.” He even appeared reluctant to contemplate losing Huang as a presidential adviser or off-loading him on an upcoming trip to Asia, saying he would like the Nvidia boss to remain in his role and he had always found him “very above board.”It was an extraordinary display of presidential confidence in a man whose company is being investigated by both spooks and lawmakers, coming as it did at a politically vulnerable time when Trump has received a drubbing in the mid-term elections. Lawmakers are champing at the bit to investigate an administration they accuse of excessive coziness with powerful technology billionaires, and the Huang affair offers an unusually convenient intersection of national security, corporate influence, China policy — and Trump’s own financial interests.The president’s critics are now zeroing in on his financial disclosures in filings before the Office of Government Ethics that show Trump investment accounts bought between $500,001 and $1 million of Nvidia shares on January 6, 2026, and between $1 million and $5 million on February 10. A September filing disclosed that the account bought as much as $1.6 million and sold as much as $1 million in Nvidia stock during August alone.These are not necessarily straightforward purchases made personally by Trump. The filings cover transactions in accounts associated with the president and his family, and the White House has repeatedly explained that independent third-party financial institutions manage the portfolio, replicating recognised indexes, including the Schwab 1000, and investment decisions are made without presidential input.But given reports of widespread grift and corruption by Trump loyalists, lawmakers are raring to investigate the matter under overarching concerns about China — not that Congress, including Democratic lawmakers, are strangers to charges of insider trading. Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who will become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said he wants an investigation into the relationship between the Trump administration, foreign intelligence operatives and AI billionaires, pointing to a broader probe that could soon sweep up tech tycoons.“I’m not interested in investigating people just because I don’t like them. I want to investigate them because I suspect they’ve put our national security at risk, they’ve been breaking the law and lying to the American people,” Coons said amid growing fears that the Huang affair would prick the AI bubble on which much of the U.S stock market currently rests.Tech analysts meanwhile are digging into Huang’s long and well-chronicled battle to sell advanced chips to China despite deep suspicion in Washington that it could result in the US ceding its lead in artificial intelligence. In an April 2026 interview to tech podcaster Dwarkesh Patel that is now being viewed with renewed interest, Huang repeatedly bats for selling advanced chips to China.Dwarkesh: Why would we want to sell China the materials for a serious cyberweapon? It’s like selling them nukes with a casing that says ‘made by Boeing’ and claiming that’s good for the US.Huang: “Comparing AI to nukes is lunacy. Enriched uranium is a lousy analogy. It’s an illogical analogy. What we have to recognize is that AI is a five-layered cake.” He then goes on to call such an approach a “loser attitude” and a “loser premise.”The nuclear analogy clearly rankled Huang, who trashed it for weeks afterwards. But with the FBI, Congress and an increasingly skeptical tech and investment community now looking under the Nvidia hood, advanced AI chips have now become the new fissile material in America.