Jensen Huang’s alleged affair with Chinese spy has Congress moving on, now a lawmaker has put a number on how much it hurt Nvidia

The scandal around Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with Alice Huang, a woman US officials reportedly suspect of spying for China, is changing the fight in Washington over AI chip sales to China, per Politico. Lawmakers and lobbyists said the odds that Congress adds new export limits to the National Defense Authorization Act have gone up significantly.

House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast said the scandal has “100 percent” weakened Huang’s ability to lobby against the measures. Mast said it made many people aware of an issue they had given little or no thought to before.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has also said he supports including export controls in the upcoming legislation, a position shared by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. That rare bipartisan agreement comes as Congress finishes its lame-duck session before the new chambers take over in January.

Nvidia is trying a softer approach now

Nvidia appears to be changing its tactics in response. After more than a year of aggressive lobbying against export control proposals, the company is now relying on major customers and tech allies to raise its concerns.

A source familiar with the situation said the company is stepping away from the more aggressive parts of its earlier approach, which follows the hiring of Bruce Andrews as chief external affairs officer in June. The source said the new strategy focuses on building allies rather than enemies. The shift also comes after Trump said the FBI is investigating the woman at the center of the scandal.

The measure most likely to make it into the year-end defense package is the Chip Security Act, which would require advanced chips to include tracking and location-verification features to prevent smuggling. Nvidia and other chipmakers say the requirements will raise costs, while a bipartisan group of lawmakers says unchecked access poses a national security risk. Two other, more far-reaching export proposals are also being discussed, including one that has worried US allies.

The momentum in Congress runs against Trump’s position, as he’s worked to loosen export controls over the past year. He has approved sales of advanced chips to China from companies like Nvidia and defended Huang after his admission of the affair.

Other tech companies are watching closely. Some cloud providers stand to gain from export controls, since limiting sales to China could increase the supply of chips for US buyers and give domestic customers more leverage over the chipmaker. A lobbyist from an AI policy group said these companies are trying to work out internally how to take advantage of the situation. The lobbyist said they would not be surprised if the firms pushed for strong export controls, “not just because they think it is good policy, but because they likely see weakness from Nvidia.”

Nvidia remains a major player in the industry. In August, the company agreed to support one of the world’s largest data centers, in Ohio, which OpenAI will lease. It also has a multiyear deal with Meta for millions of its advanced AI chips.