alt Hacker News> 3) The fact that he slept with a Chinese spy is a huge deal.
I'll admit I haven't really been following this story, but I ASSUME he didn't know she was a spy? (Given a good portion of a spy's job is making sure you don't know they are a spy) So why is this an issue either?
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Current evidence suggests he didn’t even do a prelim background check. His mistress worked for Chinese state television prior to the role she assumed through which she was introduced to him.
Source: The Economist. (Paywalled) https://economist.com/business/2026/11/11/there-has-never-be...
> That she might be a Chinese agent would have been obvious to Mr Huang had he inquired about her background: before going into business, Ms Huang worked at a Chinese state-run broadcaster known by its unimprovable acronym, “CCTV”.
Isn't the fact that her company is alleged to have smuggled a ton of banned NVIDIA chips into China a lot worse than the fact that he slept with her? Infidelity isn't good but nobody will arrest you for it. Sanctioned goods are a different story
Spy is just an allegation
> I'll admit I haven't really been following this story, but I ASSUME he didn't know she was a spy?
As best I've heard, nobody knows that now. We have some rumors with absolutely nothing behind them.
I'm sorry, is your assertion that he didn't know somehow makes this better?
That assertion makes no sense, yet tits the best interpretation I can gather from your odd comment!
Surely you mean something else?!
Incompetence is a great reason to fire someone, it turns out.
Jesus, it's like nobody has ever watched a James Bond movie.
It changes things from "he was the victim of a spy" to "sanctions evading conspirator that aided an enemy".
Even more interesting given his Taiwanese citizenship.
You literally only think shes a spy because the US Propaganda machine says so. There's no evidence of this.
We are so one shot by hollywood movies that if a newspaper points at an attractive middle aged women, whos foriegn, and says shes a spy we'll all believe it.
There's literally nothing to prove this, not even anything suspicious. Its just the Trump admin, whos owned by Silicon Valley oligarchs saying so. Wanting to buy GPUs, even if its for China does not make you a spy. It makes you a business person.
I know Ill get another 5 downvotes for saying this, but its true. Zero evidence. Its the perfect story to kick off the war against Chinese open source models which have really put a damper on Anthropic and OpenAI's revenue.
That was my understanding too. The spy part makes for a good story, but if she came out and said "Hey, I'm a spy for China. Want to share something of value to the state?" it would make her a terrible spy, so I'd assume it's really about poor judgement.
How'd they figure out she was a spy anyway?