What is Korea link of lawyer tasked with probing Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's affair

Amid affair scandal of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, his company's board has hired one of Wall Street's best-known law firms and a former Manhattan federal prosecutor to examine whether its founder and chief executive was the target of a Chinese intelligence operation. This comes after Jensen Huang admitted to having an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a prominent Chinese businesswoman whom US intelligence agencies suspect is a Chinese spy. The Nvidia CEO also apologised to his wife and family for being “unfaithful” and assured the company that he would be available for the investigation. The company chose Joon H Kim, a former acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct a “thorough and independent investigation.”

Also Read: Who is Lori Mills? Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's wife, once his lab partner, now married for 41 years

Who is Joon H Kim?

Joon H Kim is a 55-year-old white-collar defense lawyer and litigation partner at the prominent New York law firm. Born in Los Angeles in 1971 to Korean parents, Kim is a second-generation Korean American whose Korean name is Kim Joon-hyun. He earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his law degree from Harvard Law School. After law school, he clerked for Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of the Southern District of New York before joining the firm Cleary Gottlieb in 1997. Kim has spent his career moving between high-stakes private practice and federal prosecution.

He served as an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) from 2000 to 2006. He returned to the office in 2013 as chief counsel and later served as Deputy US Attorney. He led the SDNY as acting US Attorney from March 2017 to January 2018. In this role, he oversaw major criminal and civil cases, including the federal investigation into the 2017 Halloween truck attack in Manhattan and prosecutions involving mob bosses and hedge funds. One of his most high-profile case was in 2021 when New York Attorney General Letitia James appointed Kim to co-lead the independent investigation into sexual harassment allegations against then-Governor Andrew Cuomo. The findings of that report directly preceded Cuomo's resignation. As a partner in Wachtell Lipton's Litigation Department, Kim specialises in internal corporate investigations, white-collar criminal defense, regulatory enforcement, and crisis management.

Also Read: From chip war to political witch-hunt: How Chinese media views Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's affair scandal

Now, as he has been retained by a committee of independent Nvidia directors, Kim is tasked with conducting a thorough review of all available information regarding Huang's relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based data center firm Megaspeed. While Nvidia stated it has “no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised”, the board brought in Kim and amid mounting pressure from a shareholder lawsuit, an FBI probe, and congressional inquiries. He will also probe the reports claiming that Alice used her relations with the Nvidia CEO to ship Nvidia chips to China despite US sanctions.