Culper’s May 13 report questioned Nvidia CEO’s Megaspeed ties

Sophie Lindqvist

Megaspeed’s total liabilities and equity reached about $3 billion by the end of 2024, according to financial records cited in a May 13 Culper Research report. The New York-based short seller used those figures to allege that Alibaba secretly financed the Singapore-based chip buyer through shell companies.

The May 13 report predated the scandal by six months. Culper also claimed that Nvidia’s China business lost to U.S. export controls had been rerouted through Southeast Asia. Those allegations about possible illegal chip diversion have not been independently verified.

Two questions remain separate. One concerns Megaspeed’s funding and ownership. The other concerns whether Nvidia business displaced from China reappeared through Southeast Asian buyers. The cited balance-sheet records support scrutiny of the first question. They do not prove the second.

What did Culper flag on May 13?

The report resurfaced on Monday because it had identified the connection between Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Alice Huang while investigating Megaspeed’s ties to Nvidia. Alice Huang is a Megaspeed executive. She shares Jensen Huang’s surname, but the two are not related.

Culper’s report called the relationship “uncomfortably close.” The report said it had spotted Jensen Huang partying and socializing with Alice Huang on multiple occasions. It also said some Nvidia employees wondered whether they had a “special relationship.” These accounts concerned social conduct. They did not prove the separate espionage allegation.

What does the suspected Chinese spy claim involve?

Jensen Huang admitted to an extramarital affair over the weekend. Nvidia opened a formal investigation into his relationship with Alice Huang. U.S. intelligence officials believe the Chinese government recruited her to gather intelligence on Jensen Huang and influence his position on U.S. export controls for advanced AI chips. She is now suspected to be a Chinese spy.

The account presents that recruitment as an intelligence belief. It cites no document establishing how Alice Huang performed the task. Nor does it show that her personal relationship altered export-control policy. The account also does not connect the alleged intelligence work to a particular Megaspeed shipment, Nvidia sale or contract.

The commercial significance instead rests on Megaspeed’s chip purchases and the path alleged for Nvidia products displaced from China. Without a transaction link, the personal allegations do not establish that Jensen Huang changed policy or diverted chips. That remains a separate evidentiary question.

Why do Megaspeed’s finances matter?

Megaspeed buys Nvidia chips. It functions as a major chip buyer in Southeast Asia. Culper placed the Singapore company at the center of its theory that Nvidia’s China business lost to export controls was rerouted through the Southeast Asian region.

Megaspeed’s total liabilities and equity grew from $33 million at the end of 2023 to roughly $3 billion by the end of 2024. Much of that increase came as refundable deposits from an unidentified source, according to the records cited by Culper.

The account does not identify the deposit provider. It cites no customer list or shipping record showing where Megaspeed’s chips went. That omission matters because financing scale alone cannot establish the destination of Nvidia products.

The Financial Times reported on Monday that documents show Alibaba lent money to Megaspeed through subsidiaries. That reporting documents Alibaba-linked lending. It does not, by itself, establish Culper’s broader claim that the financing used shell companies or moved purchases of Nvidia chips into a diversion route.

How much weight should the allegations carry?\n

Culper stood to benefit financially from making the allegations because it is a short seller, and its report remains available on the web after being posted to X in May. That incentive does not disprove the report. It does make independent verification essential.

The documented items remain narrower than Culper’s headline theory: the balance-sheet jump, refundable deposits and Alibaba lending through subsidiaries. The shell-company structure and illegal diversion carry the larger commercial implications. The account provides records for the first group. It does not independently confirm the second.

For Nvidia, the commercial issue is narrower than the personal scandal. Export controls displaced China sales, while a diversion route would shift where those products and financing appear. Culper alleges both effects, but only the financing link has documentary support in the account.

Until more documents establish Megaspeed’s funding source and chip transactions, the financing evidence cannot carry the broader diversion claim. Additional documents on Megaspeed’s funding source and chip transactions would determine whether Culper’s diversion theory changes Nvidia’s China and Southeast Asian sales, or remains an unverified short-seller claim.