Jensen Huang hired a crisis PR firm known for sex scandals a year before his affair became public

The PR firm with a track record

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang hired Heller Inc., a crisis communications firm known for handling high-profile sex scandals, at least a year before he publicly acknowledged an extramarital affair with a woman suspected of spying for China, according to a report from Wired.

Heller Inc. founder Risa Heller has advised prominent men through personal scandals and sexual misconduct accusations over the past decade.

Her reported client list includes former congressman Anthony Weiner, celebrity chef Mario Batali, and former New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin, per a 2023 New York Magazine profile.

Each of those cases involved accusations that dominated national headlines for weeks, and Heller's playbook has been consistent: control the narrative, limit direct comment, and wait for the next news cycle.

The engagement began shortly after an October 2025 New York Times report examined whether Nvidia was helping Chinese companies evade U.S. chip export restrictions.

That story described Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company with ties to China, and its CEO Alice Huang standing next to Jensen Huang at a Taipei customer event.

Nvidia's internal communications team was instructed to copy Heller Inc. on all press inquiries about Huang from that point forward, Wired reported.

A scandal that keeps expanding

The scope of the controversy surrounding Huang has widened rapidly. On Sunday, Nvidia published a statement from Huang acknowledging an affair with a former Megaspeed executive, though he did not name Alice Huang.

The company's board separately announced an independent investigation, citing reports that Huang "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort."

The crisis has triggered scrutiny across Washington and the business world. Three House committees have asked Huang to brief Congress on his relationship with the Megaspeed executive.

Shareholders have filed a lawsuit alleging the board failed to disclose risks related to Huang's personal conduct and China exposure.

A short seller, Culper Research, flagged concerns about Huang's ties to the Chinese executive six months before the story broke, warning investors about potential national security liabilities.

The New York Times' initial October 2025 report raised questions about whether Nvidia chips were reaching Chinese companies through intermediaries, despite export controls.

Megaspeed had acquired nearly $2 billion worth of Nvidia chips, the Times reported, and Alice Huang's proximity to Jensen Huang raised red flags that are now the subject of multiple investigations spanning Congress, the boardroom, and federal law enforcement.

What the PR hire reveals

The timing of the Heller Inc. engagement is significant.

Hiring a crisis communications firm specializing in sex scandals before the affair became public suggests Huang or Nvidia anticipated the personal dimension of the story would become a liability, legal experts told TechCrunch.

The move effectively put a crisis team on retainer a full year before the story broke, raising questions about what senior Nvidia leaders knew and when they knew it.

The overlap between Huang's personal conduct and national security concerns has made this an unusually complex crisis for Nvidia.

The company is simultaneously defending its CEO against espionage allegations, managing a board investigation, responding to congressional inquiries, and fighting shareholder lawsuits — all while lobbying the U.S. government to loosen chip export restrictions to China.

Any one of these fronts would be a major distraction for a public company; together they represent an unprecedented convergence of corporate, personal, and national security risk.

Heller Inc. and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the timeline of the engagement or the scope of the firm's work.

What comes next

Nvidia's board investigation is expected to examine whether Huang's relationship with Alice Huang created vulnerabilities that a foreign intelligence service could exploit.

The outcome could determine whether Huang remains at the helm of the world's most valuable chip company, which has a market capitalization of over $3 trillion.

Congressional briefings, shareholder litigation, and the ongoing board probe are all running in parallel.

The PR firm hire adds another layer to a story that shows no signs of slowing down — and raises the question of how long Nvidia's leadership knew about the potential fallout from Huang's personal ties to a woman now at the center of a national security investigation.