Jensen Huang’s Crisis Becomes Nvidia’s Washington Problem

Everyone knows Jensen Huang talks to Donald Trump.

Nvidia’s CEO made a point of picking up the phone for the president during an all-hands meeting in August. He did it again at the All-In Summit in September when Washington was afire over AI safety concerns.

But those friendly exchanges also emphasized how Huang’s close ties to Trump — along with his intense management of Nvidia’s lobbying operation — have been indispensable to making it one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Now, with Huang under investigation over an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, his central role as Nvidia’s public face and chief advocate has made the most powerful executive in tech a major target for lawmakers from both parties, casting doubt on whether Nvidia’s fortunes can be separated from those of its co-founder.

Unlike many of its Big Tech peers in Washington, Nvidia lacks the sophisticated political infrastructure that could help it weather the scandal that swiftly engulfed the company. Its stock has plunged, Capitol Hill Democrats and Republicans are threatening probes and China hawks along with Big Tech competitors are trying to capitalize on the moment of weakness to push through stricter curbs on chips exports to China.

Trump has stuck with Huang. But the scandal is draining the company of the political capital that its CEO had accumulated during the Trump 2.0 era, according to more than a dozen lobbyists, executives, former administration officials and industry analysts who were interviewed for this story.

“If you have a personal brand that’s tied to the corporate brand, you have to think about: ‘What’s my bench look like? Who’s gonna be ready to step up into the spotlight?’” said Brett Bruen, a former diplomat and adviser to President Barack Obama who now runs the public affairs and crisis communications firm the Global Situation Room. “The fact that Nvidia apparently had none of this in place is both shocking and incredibly stupid.”

“Not only did they lose share value. They have lost and — in some cases — done irreparable harm to their relationship with the government, with clients and with investors,” Bruen added.

Others who’ve dealt directly with the company were even more blunt.

“He is going to have a hard time advocating on any geopolitical issues because no one is going to trust his judgment,” said one tech lobbyist granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. “He put himself in a situation where his judgment could be doubted.”

Nvidia declined comment.

Wall Street considers Huang essential to the company’s success — a staggering roughly 60 people report to him directly — and Nvidia’s board has kept him at the helm as it investigates his involvement with Alice Huang, a businessperson associated with Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed who’s alleged to be a Chinese spy. On Tuesday, the board announced that it had hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to lead the investigation. Law firm partner Joon H. Kim, a former acting attorney of the Southern District of New York, will lead the probe.

“Jensen is a titan in our industry — arguably one, if not the, most important people in the AI industry,” Palantir CEO Alex Karp told POLITICO Playbook in an interview airing Thursday. “I know him quite well. I respect him. He’s going through a very tough time. I really feel for him.”

Nvidia’s success in recent years has been bolstered by Huang’s ability to navigate Washington in the Trump 2.0 era. Huang first visited Trump in the Oval Office 11 days after the president was sworn in to discuss semiconductors and AI policy, and he’s since used conversations with Trump to make the case for loosening export controls and advocate for a lighter approach to AI regulation.

Nvidia’s hardware and financing prowess have been instrumental to the success of AI companies that are now dominant forces in the U.S. economy, and both the CEO and his policy team developed a reputation for having sharp elbows in high-stakes policy battles over tech policy.

Huang has been a leading voice in Washington, and he’s encouraged lawmakers to trust the American tech industry to act in the nation’s best interest. Those with first-hand dealings with the company recalled a touch so personal that they worried about offending people within it — namely Huang.

Oren Cass, a vocal critic of Nvidia who founded the think tank American Compass and an ally of Vice President JD Vance, compared Huang’s earlier dealings around Washington to that of a “mob boss.” This was “not the ordinary lobbying that is a typical and legitimate part of a democratic process,” he told POLITICO on Tuesday.

And while Huang’s aggressive tactics to influence Washington were effective before his personal life became a national security concern, the company’s strategy had started to shift before the scandal went public.

Nvidia’s approach around Washington changed in the weeks leading up to reports of Huang’s involvement with Alice Huang.

The company’s meetings with lawmakers have become more upbeat and less demanding, and no longer carry the sense that Nvidia will remember everyone who crossed it, according to a tech sector lobbyist who remains in touch with the company and an aide to lawmakers working on export control measures.

The shift may have arrived too late. The lobbyist — who, like others interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity to speak frankly about Nvidia’s tactics — said Nvidia’s earlier tactics caused “damage that cannot be easily undone” and “deeply impeded trust issues” with lawmakers.

What’s more, while Huang’s access to the White House has been unparalleled, Nvidia’s broader D.C. lobbying operation is relatively small compared to that of its Big Tech counterparts.

The chip giant only hired its first outside lobbyist in late 2022, and did not stand up an in-house lobbying operation until early 2025. The company’s lobbying spend is considerably smaller than other tech companies with comparable market caps. Nvidia spent $4.69 million on in-house lobbying in the first three quarters of 2026 — a number dwarfed by the $19 million spent by Meta over the same period, and less than what Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple spent on in-house lobbyists, according to federal filings.

While Nvidia does employ lobbyists, its filings show that those individuals focused on a relatively narrow range of issues compared to the broad swath of proposals and issue areas that other top tech companies typically lobby on.

Nvidia has staffed up around Washington in recent months. Bruce Andrews, a veteran lobbyist and former Commerce Department official, joined as its chief external affairs officer in June. Longtime Consumer Bankers Association spokesperson Weston Loyd has also signed on in an external affairs role. And earlier this year, former Bullpen Strategy Group managing director Chris Martin joined Nvidia’s policy communications shop, which is led by John Rizzo — a spokesperson for former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

And Nvidia’s in-house lobbying has been supplemented by contracts with bipartisan lobbying firms like BGR Group and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. The company’s lobbyists on K Street include Hill veterans like Nadeam Elshami — who served as chief of staff to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi — and former White House officials including Dan Greenwood, who served as deputy assistant to the president in the first Trump administration.

But one lobbyist familiar with Nvidia’s work in Washington said the company relies more heavily on its internal government affairs team, describing the company’s presence on K Street as “very disorganized.”

Huang’s “personal relationship with the president is critical to the strategy,” said a person familiar with Nvidia’s lobbying operation, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “They weren’t very influential before that.”

The person added that even if Huang stays on as CEO, the company will have to further reevaluate its policy strategy.

“I don’t think they have the ability to move mountains like they were before,” they said.

Gabby Miller and Christine Mui contributed to this report.