🎯
Taiwanese semiconductor analyst Andrew Lu’s take on the recent scandal involving Jensen Huang:
Why the US Seized on the Scandal to Draw Its Sword: Three Strategic Objectives
The purpose of this scandal is by no means to expose an affair. It is to force through three critical objectives that had made no headway in the tech war between the US and China because Jensen Huang opposed them.
The first cut: Completely destroy the legitimacy of Jensen Huang's lobbying against sanctions in Washington
Over the past two years, the loudest and most influential business leader in Silicon Valley opposing a total ban on chip exports to China has been Jensen Huang. He has told the White House the same thing all along: "Cede the Chinese market to Huawei, and the only one that ends up dead is the American tech industry."
But the moment US intelligence labels the woman named as Huang's affair partner "a spy working for China's Ministry of State Security who sought to steer the US toward easing its chip controls," every bit of lobbying he has done for looser controls takes on an entirely different political meaning. It becomes a national security matter, raising the possibility that a foreign spy used a secret relationship to exert influence.
Huang can no longer say a single word in defense of the Chinese market before Congress or the White House. If he does, he will be branded as someone who "fell for an intelligence operation and still hasn't come to his senses."
The second cut: Reverse the H200 export approvals for China and sever the link between Chinese shell companies and Southeast Asian smuggling networks
Look at the timing of the two reports.
On November 8, the very day the Jensen Huang scandal broke, The New York Times published an investigation for which its reporters went in person to dozens of Chinese companies that the US Commerce Department had approved to handle Nvidia's H200 chips. New Matrix in Beijing was one of them. According to the report, the registered addresses of companies approved to buy the chips turned out to be empty "ghost offices," and some of the companies had close ties to entities on US sanctions lists and to firms under contract with the Chinese military.
One exposé says Nvidia's CEO was having an affair with a female spy from Megaspeed, the Singapore company that handled the chip smuggling. The other says the Chinese companies Commerce approved to buy H200s are nothing but shell companies trading on behalf of the Chinese military. The aim of these two reports is clear. They are meant to pressure the Trump administration and the Commerce Department into fully revoking or freezing H200 export approvals for China and, going further, to force a sweeping overhaul of the loophole that let chips be diverted through data centers run by third parties in Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
The third cut: Put Nvidia on a national security leash through congressional oversight and an independent investigation
As the world's largest company by market cap and the dominant force in AI, Nvidia has until now enjoyed broad autonomy in how it runs its business. But in the wake of this incident, the three congressional committees responsible for China, foreign affairs, and intelligence have begun examining Nvidia's internal security measures directly. They have even pressured Nvidia's board into forming an independent investigation committee to look into the company's own founder and CEO.
In effect, Washington's national security establishment has planted a watchdog right inside Nvidia's board. From now on, the goal is to make sure that everything, down to where each and every one of Nvidia's high performance chips ends up, conforms strictly to US national security strategy. It also means there is no more room for skirting the edge of the rules or releasing chips with specs specially tailored to regulatory thresholds.
Conclusion
"The scandal was a detonator set off right on cue. The real goal was to plug the holes chips were leaking through."
Jensen Huang made the fatal mistake of letting his guard down in his private life and personal relationships. In the end, he fell into a honey trap, the textbook tactic of intelligence warfare, and was compromised. America's national security and intelligence agencies ruthlessly exploited the weakness his private life had exposed. As a result, they solved three thorny problems in a single stroke: Nvidia's lobbying at the White House to ease restrictions on China, the flow of H200 chips into Chinese shell companies, and smuggling routed through Singapore.
The closed congressional hearing set for November 18 will be the decisive turning point at which the US moves in earnest to tighten its sanctions on China's AI compute even further.
10
interesting week ahead 🫠
You can't make this up:
At 6:00 PM ET, US stock market futures opened for the first time since Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitted to a "relationship" with a Chinese spy.
By 6:01 PM ET, S&P 500 futures had erased an implied -$300 billion in market cap.
Then, by 6:07 PM ET, all losses were erased and S&P 500 futures turned green, adding back an implied +$350 billion in market cap as traders bought the dip.
That's a $650 billion swing in implied market cap due to a CEO's relationship.
We all just witnessed the strangest record in stock market history.
14
I hope this will be more obvious in hindsight:
• Trump has completed the transition of the Middle East.
• Democrats are now slowly coming back to power under the guise that the hawkish republicans has costed Americans immensely.
• Blame is going squarely on Israel.
• Netanyahu failed on the elections.
• Iran is now moving from its exclusive shia militancy towards coordinating the Mecca Pact.
• Houthis will be on their way out.
The trajectory of what I’ve been saying since early last year has remained unchanged.
The prospect of large scale Middle Eastern wars is coming to a permanent end.
For the first time in 70 years,
Shia and Sunni leaders are coming together.
22
I'm feelin' that.
Trump isn't an idiot. Nor is he incompetent. He just doesn't serve US citizens.
His entire objective was to intentionally lose the midterms tonight and it looks like a success.
The power structure in the US is using the two-party system to change face to change agendas.
The Iran war is being used to gather the frustration of average, everyday American citizens with the democratic party looking to be the party back in power.
The average American feels the sting of the transnational private sector (TPS) in their wallets and that's all that matters.
The TPS doesn't care. It just pays different politicians on the other side to make it look like there's a different, better option.
There isn't.
It's the illusion of choice.
Trump is just doing his part for optics. That's all.
I expect big things to happen regarding TPS foreign policy.
Starting with Iran and the situation in Israel and Gaza.
The democratic party being thrust back into power creates the optics that Trump will be impeached for the illegality of the Iran war...
A war in which Trump isn't actually the one deciding on whether it happens or not.
A war that serves the same function as the Ukraine war by shifting the center of the global economy away from the West.
The difference is that the consumer's pocket is exposed to the geopolitical sensitivity of the Iran war's policies.
The Ukraine war didn't have the same effect, at least not in the US.
Things will happen in the Middle East, albeit not kinetic.
Expect Netanyahu to be out as well. News regarding government formation and coalitions in Israel are coming.
19
required viewing 👊
Introducing my Bollinger Band Masterclass.
In this video, I go in-depth from the very basics to some more advanced concepts, condensing everything down into manageable chunks of information that the average investor can digest.
With that said, I hope you enjoy this masterclass.
Completely free.
Available in 4K 60fps.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Overview
01:02 – Introduction
02:56 – Setting Up
07:11 – The Squeeze
11:05 – Mean Reversion
15:15 – Walking the Band
19:17 – Band Escape
23:03 – Confluence Stacking
30:15 - Summary
30:46 – Closing
If this helps you, please share it with a friend and follow for more.
1
1
92
This post lives rent free in my head:
Want to have your mind blown?
In 1971, the median household income was $9,030, or 220 ounces of gold.
In 2025, it was $87,460, or just 25 ounces of gold.
Your paycheck went up 10x.
Measured in gold, it fell 88%.
To earn what the median household earned in 1971, you’d need about $890,000 per year today.
That’s what fiat debasement looks like.
4




















