By Tom Fowdy
Another story about the chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp, Jensen Huang, has appeared in the New York Times. The latest report accuses the tech titan of allegedly having another affair, this time with a female executive in the company. It comes just days after he admitted wrongdoing in an inappropriate relationship with a woman, who has been branded as part of a hysterical media discourse as a "Chinese spy." The original reports were sourced from US government departments and intelligence, which as I noted, is often cited uncritically in media without the introspection that they may have an agenda in their framing.
In my opinion, while this does not absolve him of personal martial wrongdoing, of which he has admitted to, there appears to be a concerted political campaign with the goal of engineering the downfall, or neutralizing, of Jensen Huang. The timing of these reports is very conspicuous, for they have been released to the media immediately following the US Midterm elections, of which the results were less than favourable to the Republicans and the administration itself. More important of course, is the enormous geopolitical significance of which Nvidia Corp, and thus Jensen Huang himself as its very public figurehead, have accumulated. This is precisely is why the stakes over who controls that, are so high.
As the AI boom has taken hold, Nvidia has become one of the most important and in-demand companies on earth. A critical supplier of graphics cards and chips, it has effectively enabled the infrastructure of a new era and in doing so accumulated a market value which peaked last month at $5.7 trillion dollars. As it rose, Taipei-born Jensen Huang became an international CEO celebrity who became synonymous with technological success. Several months ago he visited South Korea, where he received wall-to-wall coverage and became a figure of admiration. After he eaten at Kkanbu Chicken, in typical Korean trend style the chain boomed in popularity. Huang had become a global figure.
At the same time, however, the rise of Nvidia was intersecting with high-stakes geopolitics. The United States seeks to maintain its dominance in the field of semiconductors, computer chips, artificial intelligence and cutting-edge technologies. A bit part of that strategy has been trying to contain the rise of China. For Nvidia, this has been both an opportunity, but also a problem, being an opportunity through policies that seek to maintain and thus sustain, its own dominance in the field, but a problem in the fact that there has been for many years now a political tug of war on how much Nvidia is allowed to sell to China, which is the largest and most lucrative export market for semiconductors in the world.
If it wasn't obvious already, Jensen Huang is not a China-hawk. The scale of his company and its geopolitical stakes force him onto the Washington D.C scene, where he has lobbied, of course, to end restrictions on exporting to China. The Biden administration was a lot more brutal in its approach than the Trump one, who eased restrictions and struck a compromise deal that the company would pay a "tax" to the administration on its exports. After all, Trump himself sympathizes with the idea that America is losing if it is not in the Chinese market to compete it, and there is a genuine fear that if Chinese companies are not using American chips, they may fine well develop their own capabilities anyway.
Of course, not everyone in the US administration and Washington D.C see it that way. If Jensen Huang has his private critics, we can presumably guess that they deem him as a person to be too big, too influential, and thus tilting the balance of power towards policy outcomes they dislike. US big tech CEOs in general are conscious that due to the sheer gravity of their power, their role is involuntarily political whether they like it or not, and therefore their own survival is contingent upon toeing the line of the "ruling regime", because failure to do so could end in costly regulatory crackdowns. Mark Zuckerberg, for one, is infamous for that. I will never forget how he told a Congressional hearing how "China steals intellectual property," heavily contrasted with his public stunt jog in Tiananmen Square back in 2008, or when he went sailboarding on a lake with a US flag in order to affirm his loyalty to the country amidst growing tensions.
Huang of course, is at a major disadvantage to the likes of Zuckerberg. All Facebook has to do is not be seen pushing agendas the establishment dislikes, but Nvidia is now inseparably connected to American foreign policy, and worse he has a culturally Chinese background which whether we like it or not, becomes itself a mark of suspicion. Thus, a campaign has emerged which in my opinion, has the calculated intent of reducing his own political influence in Washington D.C or even forcing him out of the country. The opportunistic language of "Chinese spy" has sought to implicate him in a national security scandal, which, of course, immediately neutralises his power in Washington D.C. In doing so, an opportunity arises to try and force the company in a much more "compliant" political direction, which asks less and obeys more. Will he hold on? Time will tell, but he may never be as quite as influential personally as he once was…
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | Jensen Huang and the weaponization of the word 'spy' in media discourse
Opinion | The Big AI correction is finally here, but the clock won't be turned back
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