Megaspeed vows to cooperate with US probes as Nvidia board weighs Huang's fate

Megaspeed broke its silence Thursday, saying it will work with US government investigations and takes its duty to follow export control laws "extremely seriously." The Singapore-based company said it has already cooperated with inspections by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security and "stands ready to cooperate fully with any other relevant U.S. government authority." It added that it is committed to working "constructively and transparently" with Washington.

The statement dropped while Nvidia's board was meeting to settle Huang's future at the chipmaker he co-founded, two sources told NBC News. The meeting took place Wednesday evening and the White House was aware, according to one of the sources. It followed a New York Times report that Huang also had a relationship with an executive who reported to him.

At the center of the storm: Alice Huang, who NBC News reported was determined by US intelligence agencies to be a Chinese intelligence operative and to have had an affair with the Nvidia CEO. She held a senior role at Megaspeed, once one of Nvidia's biggest customers in Southeast Asia. The company is accused of illegally diverting billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips to China, and the Justice Department is pursuing a criminal investigation into those allegations, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Megaspeed didn't address the allegations about Alice Huang, but said it retained a leading US law firm to run a comprehensive census of its graphics processing units and independently verify its export control compliance. The company said it "welcomes appropriate government scrutiny" and wants to show through concrete actions that it operates within applicable US laws.

Beijing isn't buying the story. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Thursday that the US "should stop fabricating so-called espionage narratives as a pretext for implementing technological blockades," after China dismissed the spying claims as "smears." A former national security official told NBC News it's possible Alice Huang wasn't a career spy for the Ministry of State Security but was asked to share information based on her access to Jensen Huang.

The fallout has been brutal on the market. Nvidia's stock has plunged since the 63-year-old chief admitted over the weekend to being "unfaithful" to his wife.