President Donald Trump is not expected to raise allegations involving former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and a suspected Chinese intelligence operation when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping, senior U.S. officials said Friday.
Trump is scheduled to travel to Shenzhen, China, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on Nov. 18 and 19. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, will accompany the president, according to officials.
The White House said earlier Friday that Trump plans to hold a summit with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin while in Shenzhen. Officials indicated that economic issues, particularly implementation of the trade agreement, would take priority in Trump’s meeting with Xi.
The allegations concern Jensen Huang’s relationship with suspected spy Alice Huang, who is not related to him. The relationship has fueled concerns that a Singapore based company where Alice Huang was an executive diverted restricted Nvidia chips to China.
One official sought to separate the Nvidia controversy from the president’s diplomatic agenda. “The situation with Nvidia should not really have any bearing on the trip,” the official said during a press call on the condition of anonymity.
The official also said American export controls would not be negotiated during the visit. “In all of our discussions and negotiations with the Chinese, we do not negotiate American export controls … and we don’t expect it to figure at all in any of our conversations with the Chinese while we’re there.”
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Asked whether Trump would bring the allegations against Alice Huang directly to Xi, the official pointed instead to trade policy. “The focus of a meeting with President Xi, at least on the economic side, is going to be about implementation of the trade agreement.”
The same official suggested that ongoing national security matters would remain outside the discussion. “When it comes to some of these national security matters and examinations and investigations that are going on in the U.S., [that is] probably not something that we’re going to read the Chinese in on at this moment,” the official said.
Another official was more direct about the expected agenda. “I don’t expect the president to raise it — the Alice Huang issue.”
China has called the allegations against Alice Huang baseless. U.S. officials nevertheless described the issue as unlikely to enter Trump’s talks with Chinese leaders during the Shenzhen trip.
Jensen Huang resigned this week as Nvidia’s CEO after damning reports that he had an affair with Alice Huang. She was an executive of Megaspeed, a cloud computing company being examined for possible facilitation of sending billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips in violation of U.S. restrictions.
The scandal has rocked Nvidia and prompted questions about whether the Commerce Department has acted aggressively enough to prevent advanced chips from reaching China. The department is led by Howard Lutnick.
Musk’s participation also drew questions during Friday’s call because of his leadership roles at Tesla and SpaceX. A reporter asked officials why the president was bringing Musk on the trip.
“I don’t want to speak for the president on exactly why Elon’s going,” an official said. The official then pointed to Musk’s business interests and possible value as an adviser during the president’s engagements.
“Obviously, he has tremendous business interests in the U.S.-China relationship. He’s a big part of our national security,” the official said. “There are numerous reasons, given the engagement that the president is going to have, where I think Elon would be of tremendous benefit, just even as an advisor to the president.”