Jensen Huang's resignation as Nvidia CEO, after a scandal involving an alleged Chinese spy, has set off a wave of conspiracy theories online, some of which blame Israel and the Mossad.
The documented facts point elsewhere. Huang, 63, stepped down last week after admitting to an affair with Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed whom U.S. intelligence reportedly suspects of working for China's Ministry of State Security. Her company was a major buyer of advanced chips from Nvidia, and it is under investigation in the United States for allegedly circumventing export restrictions to move advanced Nvidia chips to China. The pressure on Huang grew after reports of further affairs with Nvidia employees, and the board accepted his resignation on Thursday.
None of that has stopped some social media users from pointing at Jerusalem.
The "Israeli takeover" theory
One theory focuses on Colette Kress, Nvidia's CFO, who was named interim CEO. Kress oversees the company's Israeli operations, where Nvidia employs about 6,000 people. Some social media users suggested Kress's appointment could signal greater Israeli influence within Nvidia, and some went further, alleging that Huang was deliberately pushed out. The Singapore outlet PLANB, which covered the trend, noted that there is no publicly established evidence that Israel or pro-Israel executives orchestrated Huang's departure.
The "secret Jew" claim
Another theory, documented by the Jewish blog Jewlicious, claims Huang himself is secretly Jewish. Its proponents point to the Jewish community of Kaifeng, China, whose family names were recorded on a stone inscription from 1489. Huang is one of those surnames, so, the theory goes, Jensen Huang must be a hidden Jew who was "tapped" to build Nvidia so he could hand it to Israel.
Huang is one of the most common surnames in China, shared by tens of millions of people. Huang was born in Taiwan, moved to the United States as a child, and co-founded Nvidia in 1993 in a booth at a Denny's restaurant in San Jose.
Not the only conspiracy in town
Israel is not the only target. Chip research firm SemiAnalysis suggested that U.S. intelligence helped push Huang out because he opposed tighter chip export restrictions on China, though it offered no direct evidence of intelligence involvement, describing its interpretation as its "best conspiracy theory take." Another theory claims rival AI companies orchestrated his fall because he championed open AI models.
But only one of these theories has an old and familiar shape: when something goes wrong, blame the Jews.
A friend of Israel
The theories also ignore Huang's own record. He has called Israel Nvidia's "second home" and built it into one of the company's largest centers. When Nvidia employee Avinatan Or was released from Hamas captivity, Huang wrote to staff that he was "deeply moved," and he later hosted Or and his partner, Noa Argamani, at Nvidia's headquarters.
That support is precisely what the conspiracy theorists have twisted into evidence of a plot.
