{"text":[[{"start":9.04,"text":"Nvidia’s board has hired Joon H Kim, a former top New York federal prosecutor now at law firm Wachtell Lipton, to conduct its internal probe into chief executive Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy."}],[{"start":22,"text":"The board’s investigation, announced on Sunday after Huang admitted to having an affair, will delve into the circumstances that led to one of the most powerful figures in tech potentially being targeted by Chinese intelligence."}],[{"start":34.42,"text":"The appointment of Kim and Wachtell brings a former federal prosecutor who has led high-profile probes, including into former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, as well as a Wall Street law firm known for advising corporate boards and conducting investigations into sports league scandals."}],[{"start":49.96,"text":"The revelations that Huang had a romantic relationship with a woman US intelligence officials believe is a Chinese intelligence asset have rocked the chip giant at the centre of the AI boom and raised questions about its succession planning and a governance structure oriented around its founder."}],[{"start":65.9,"text":"The woman, Alice Huang, was a top executive at Megaspeed, a large Nvidia client based in Singapore that US authorities have investigated for smuggling chips to China in violation of export controls."}],[{"start":77.7,"text":"The investigation will be conducted by a committee of independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, the board has said. The board on Sunday said it had confidence in Huang and “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised”."}],[{"start":92.72,"text":"Unique among S&P 100 companies, Nvidia’s board does not have a chair. Former Cooley chief executive Stephen Neal, lead independent director, is heading the board’s investigative committee. Cooley has long represented Nvidia as outside counsel."}],[{"start":107.6,"text":"Kim acted as the top prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, known for handling the country’s biggest white-collar cases, for 10 months after President Donald Trump fired then-US attorney Preet Bharara in 2017."}],[{"start":120.7,"text":"In March 2021, Kim was appointed as an independent investigator by New York attorney-general Letitia James to co-lead a probe into sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo. The findings of that probe led to Cuomo’s resignation."}],[{"start":134.92,"text":"Kim joined Wachtell in October of this year. The firm has long been hired by the National Basketball Association for investigations into owners and teams. This included an extensive probe into salary cap violations by the Los Angeles Clippers, which resulted in tech billionaire and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer being suspended for one year in September."}],[{"start":158.56,"text":"The unprecedented disclosures about Huang have turned a spotlight on Nvidia’s board, several of whom have held their seats for an unusually long time by the standards of a large tech company."}],[{"start":169.84,"text":"Nvidia’s independent directors include two early venture capital investors in Nvidia, Mark Stevens and Tench Coxe, who joined the board when it was founded in 1993. Stevens stepped down for a brief period during the 2000s."}],[{"start":184.08,"text":"Harvey Jones and Brooke Seawell, both former executives at chip design software company Synopsys, have also sat on the board since the 1990s."}],[{"start":198.88,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1794401555_6140.mp3"}