By Elena Vasquez

Elon Musk said Friday that a petition to reinstate Jensen Huang as Nvidia's chief executive was "underway" and "I'm signing it too," as allies of the ousted founder seized on official uncertainty over whether Alice Huang was a Chinese spy.

Huang resigned Thursday, hours after reports that he had an affair with Megaspeed executive Alice Huang and that some US officials had concluded she was a Chinese intelligence asset gathering information for Beijing. The question of espionage, however, remains formally unresolved — and that gap is now the rallying point for his defenders.

Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Thursday that he, the Justice Department and FBI Director Kash Patel had reached "no conclusions" about who Alice Huang "is or is not."

"Your first question assumes something that I have never said and that I don't know to be true. So you assumed that DOJ learns that she is, in fact, a spy. I'm not — nobody said that. I certainly haven't said that," Blanche said in response to a reporter's question. He confirmed the DOJ is investigating whether she acted as a Chinese spy.

A CNN report published Thursday, citing multiple unnamed sources, said intelligence gathered on Alice Huang so far does not prove she was spying for the Chinese government. US officials are divided over the strength of the evidence, the report said. China has repeatedly denied the allegations.

President Donald Trump, asked by ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith whether Huang should have resigned, pointed to the same uncertainty: "The big thing is, was the woman a spy? And I don't know if that's been determined yet. But if the woman was a spy, yes. If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different."

Who is backing Huang's return?

The list is growing.

• Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, endorsed the reinstatement petition Friday on X.
• Gavin Baker, managing partner of Atreides Management, wrote that Nvidia's board "should have waited for their own investigation to finish" before forcing out the cofounder. "Shareholders, employees and partners overwhelmingly support Jensen," Baker wrote. In a separate post, he said he believes Huang could be rehired.
• David Sacks, the venture capitalist and former Trump AI czar, argued on X that the "spy narrative is collapsing already."
• Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, said the uncertainty raises "serious corporate governance issues."

Inside Nvidia, some employees are pushing the same line. Wired reported that an internal "suggestion box" post drew more than 1,600 comments, including calls to restore Huang as CEO.

What do the critics say?

The defense is hardly universal. CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Kramer highlighted reports that the former CEO had two other extramarital relationships with Nvidia employees, including one with the company's vice president of healthcare, who was his direct report.

"How venal, how disgusting are some that they are willing to look away from a ceo who is having a relationship with a subordinate simply because he is brilliant or a money-maker," Kramer wrote Friday on X. "No one was a bigger defender of Jensen than I was but there are rules about sex with subordinates. Just because someone is brilliant doesn't mean he can do what he wants."

What is the Megaspeed connection?

Megaspeed, the Singapore-based data center company where Alice Huang was a top executive, is already under US scrutiny over allegations it helped divert restricted Nvidia chips to Chinese customers. The company has denied any wrongdoing.

Singapore ran its own investigation into Megaspeed, which did not examine potential espionage, and briefly impounded Alice Huang's passport during the probe. The government barred her from re-entering the country after concluding she provided inaccurate information to police to downplay her role at the company.

Bloomberg reported Friday that a Chinese company founded by Alice Huang obtained smuggled AI chips that were then installed at a Shanghai data center connected to Megaspeed.

For now, the DOJ's espionage investigation continues, the petition gathers signatures, and Nvidia's board has not moved.