It often starts with a beautiful stranger, a “chance” encounter, and a powerful man who thinks he simply got lucky.
As Nvidia’s board investigates whether CEO Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort and Huang has admitted to having an affair, an old spycraft tactic has been thrust into the modern world of AI chips, corporate access, and national security.
“The Chinese MSS and PLA are very aggressive and play the long game,” Fred Burton, a former US Diplomatic Security Service special agent, told Business Insider, referring to China’s Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army.
For executives with access to company secrets, the episode raises a pressing question: How do you avoid dating someone who just may be a spy?
A sticky business
Will Geddes, the founder of London-based corporate threat-management firm International Corporate Protection Group, said the most effective operations rarely begin with an obvious proposition at a hotel bar.
Instead, operatives may spend months studying a target’s “pattern of life” — their travel, routines, hobbies, and vulnerabilities like isolation, marital difficulty, or separation — before engineering a meeting at a conference, work event, or through someone the executive already trusts, he said.
In this case, the woman linked to Huang is Alice Huang, a former executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed. The New York Times reported that US officials believe she was an asset of China’s Ministry of State Security who had been recruited to collect intelligence on Huang. China’s foreign ministry has repeatedly said the “Chinese spy” allegation is unsubstantiated.
Jensen and Alice Huang, who aren’t related, can be seen together in photos dating back to June 2024 at an after-party following Computex 2024, Taiwan’s annual computer and tech trade show.
Since then, they’ve been pictured together in Taipei in May 2025, on the sidelines of Computex 2025, and in a series of photos shared by Alice Huang on WeChat, the Chinese social media platform.
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The warning signs and the key questions
There are several key questions executives should ask themselves if they start to suspect someone in their lives, said Eric O’Neill, a former FBI counterintelligence operative. O’Neill helped capture Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who spied on the US for Moscow for over two decades.
Among those questions: Who initiated contact? How quickly did it develop? What does the person know about their business, finances, travel, and personal life? And have they sought introductions, access, or unusual favors?
“A skilled intelligence officer rarely arrives wearing a trench coat and introducing herself as a spy,” O’Neill said. “The best ones look and behave exactly like the person you want to meet.”
O’Neill said executives should verify a new partner’s identity and background before allowing them into their home, private life, or professional orbit.
They should also separate personal and corporate devices and accounts, and use multifactor authentication.
Yet Burton said background checks on people close to a CEO are “rarely done unless they are requested.”
And when they do happen, he said, they often focus on criminal or financial checks for household staff rather than a boss’s friends or romantic partners.
The most dangerous spy in your life
If you suspect something is amiss, seek help before embarrassment becomes leverage.
“The most dangerous spy in your life may be the person you’ve stopped questioning,” O’Neill said.
Geddes said executives should be alert if a new partner seems unusually attractive, initiates contact, or accelerates intimacy faster than expected. They should also pay attention to someone who repeatedly controls where and when they meet — choosing the restaurant, bar, or hotel and steering the timing.
None of those signs alone proves malicious intent. But together, Geddes said, they can warrant a closer look.
“Even sharp, experienced decision-makers can lose their judgement in the presence of someone attractive,” Geddes said.
A slim track record
Documented cases involving major corporate leaders falling for foreign operatives are rare, Burton said, but the tactics used are well established.
In March 2024, authorities charged ex-Army officer David Slater with sharing classified information through a dating site with someone claiming to be a Ukrainian woman. He pleaded guilty and received a 70-month sentence in October 2025.
And in December 2020, Axios reported that US officials believed Chinese national Christine Fang cultivated politicians, including sexual or romantic relationships with two Midwestern mayors, in an alleged intelligence-gathering operation. Fang left the US in 2015 amid an FBI-led investigation and has not faced public charges.
While the Huang matter is still under investigation and Huang has not disclosed with whom he had the affair, the news has roiled markets and led to widespread speculation about whether Huang will have to step down as CEO.
It’s also, Burton said, a reminder to companies at the cutting edge of the tech sector to be wary of threats from hostile agencies and threat actors.
“The oldest tricks in the espionage playbook still work,” O’Neill said.