Trump Will Not Raise Jensen Huang Spy Allegations With Xi at APEC Summit, Officials Say

President Donald Trump does not plan to raise allegations of a Chinese intelligence operation involving former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, senior U.S. officials said Friday.

The disclosure came as the White House confirmed Trump will travel to Shenzhen, China, on November 18 and 19 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he is also expected to hold a three-way summit with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The situation with Nvidia should not really have any bearing on the trip," one official said on a press call, speaking on condition of anonymity. "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."

A second official was more direct, saying, "I don't expect the president to raise it — the Alice Huang issue."

The allegations center on Alice Huang — who is not related to Jensen Huang — a suspected Chinese spy with whom the former Nvidia CEO reportedly had an affair. She was an executive at Megaspeed, a cloud-computing company under scrutiny for potentially facilitating the transfer of billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips in violation of U.S. export restrictions. Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO this week following those reports.

When asked about the summit's economic agenda, an official said discussions with Xi would focus on implementation of the existing trade agreement, adding that ongoing national security investigations were "probably not something that we're going to read the Chinese in on at this moment."

China has called the allegations against Alice Huang baseless.

The scandal has renewed scrutiny of the Commerce Department, led by Howard Lutnick, over whether it has moved aggressively enough to prevent advanced semiconductors from reaching China in defiance of U.S. export controls.

Officials also confirmed that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, will accompany Trump on the Shenzhen trip. When asked why, one official said, "Obviously, he has tremendous business interests in the U.S.-China relationship. He's a big part of our national security. 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."

Musk's inclusion adds another dimension to a summit already laden with geopolitical complexity, as his companies maintain significant commercial exposure to China across both electric vehicles and satellite technology.

The Nvidia episode and its absence from the APEC agenda underscores a broader tension in U.S.-China relations — where trade implementation, economic negotiation, and national security concerns are increasingly difficult to separate. Whether congressional pressure over the chip diversion allegations will complicate the administration's diplomatic calculus after the summit remains a key question heading into 2027.