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Elon Musk Says It Would Be an 'Honor' to Hire Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Amid Chinese Spy Row, as Dan Ives Flags 'Black Eye Moment'

Badar Shaikh 10 hours ago

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Elon Musk says hiring Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang would be an honor amid fallout over Huang’s alleged ties to a Chinese asset.

Billionaire and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that he would be open to working with Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang amid fallout from the latter’s relationship with an alleged Chinese asset.

Elon Musk Says It Would Be An ‘Honor’ to Hire Jensen Huang

In a post on the social media platform X, user @Zerohedge urged the Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO to hire Huang following the news. “That would be an honor,” Musk said in his response.

That would be an honor

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026

Huang has been a close collaborator with Musk as SpaceX was working with Nvidia to source chips for its goal of operating data centers in orbit. “Old friends are the best friends. Jensen rocks,” the billionaire wrote in one of his posts on X last month as SpaceX continues to develop its “Starmind” constellation of dedicated AI compute satellites.

On the other hand, Huang has also hailed Musk’s compute buildout and chip fab efforts, saying that the joint SpaceX-Tesla Terafab semiconductor facility was something that Musk may be uniquely positioned to achieve. “If anybody could do it, he can,” Huang said at an event in September.

Notably, both the CEOs also personally accompanied President Donald Trump on Air Force One in May this year to attend the high-level bilateral talks hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Chinese capital Beijing.

Dan Ives on NVDA

Investor Dan Ives, who is the managing director at Yorkville Ives, called the incident a “black eye moment” for the chipmaker in a post on X on Wednesday. Ives pointed to his comments made during an interview with NBC News, calling Huang’s role as the CEO the most “important” and “integral” part of any company “in the last 100 years.”

The investor, who had earlier called Huang the “central nervous system” for the tech sector, called the Chinese spy situation a “quagmire” in the interview. However, uncertainty remains over Huang’s role as the CEO, with the board reportedly looking to oust the Nvidia co-founder.

On @NBCNightlyNews discussing the dark days at Nvidia with the Jensen black eye moment 👇📺https://t.co/2pVoONhRNU pic.twitter.com/GDfqx5jrSq

— Dan Ives (@DivesTech) November 12, 2026

According to a report by The New York Times on Wednesday, Huang was also in a second extramarital relationship with another Nvidia executive, Vice President of Health Care Kimberly Powell, who also works directly under the CEO and is married.

The relationship is also reportedly a violation of the chipmaker’s code of conduct, which urges employees to avoid conflicts of interest, including “personal relationships.” Huang has been married to his wife Lori Huang (née Mills) since 1985.

Nvidia Chinese Spy Allegations

Earlier this week, reports emerged that the Nvidia CEO was in a relationship with Alice Huang, who is a former Chinese executive at Singapore-based cloud computing firm Megaspeed. Huang has reportedly been identified by the U.S. authorities as a Chinese intelligence operative. The Nvidia CEO has acknowledged the relationship.

Following the news, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) called for the removal of Huang from his role as the CEO of Nvidia, alleging that the company’s internal investigation was not thorough. “The potential for extortion is so tremendous that something as sensitive as Nvidia chips, I just think he’s got to go,” Cramer said.

Price Action: NVDA shares were down 7.26% to $161.11 during overnight trading on Wednesday.

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Photo courtesy: Shutterstock

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