This Week In Blunders – Nov. 8-14
“When women go wrong, men go right after them.” – Mae West
Nvidia makes the world’s smartest chips, but its founder Jensen Huang must have been thinking with the wrong one.
First came revelations that he had an affair with an executive at a major Nvidia customer suspected of spying for China. Then came reports of another tryst with a top Nvidia executive. Then possibly a third woman.
The news started oozing out on Sunday, and by Thursday Huang was out of a job after 33 years of building a $4 trillion company.
The world’s most powerful chipmaker is now the world’s most expensive soap opera.
Nvidia makes the advanced processors powering the artificial intelligence revolution, including sensitive military applications. Huang’s libido put his career, his company and national security at risk.
Read More: Huang Dang Doodle All Night Long (Business Blunders)
Shares plunged, wiping out hundreds of billions in market value. Shareholders headed to court, Congress demanded answers, and the board launched an independent investigation.
The White House is scrambling to explain why it loosened restrictions on Nvidia chip sales to China while receiving intelligence reports of Huang’s possible ensnarement in a suspected honeypot operation.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose sons run a Wall Street firm with extensive Nvidia ties. Lutnick is now hanging on to his job by his slippery fingers.
But President Donald Trump, whose White House ballroom project received $25 million from Nvidia, continued to defend Huang, doubling down on failure, as he so often does:
“I asked him that question. Did you have any idea that she was a spy? He said, I had no idea that she was a spy. And I really believe him.”
A honeypot target isn’t suppose to know. That’s the point. The question should be, what did he give her company?
Huang's forbidden love, Alice Huang (no relation), reportedly had no technical background but became a top executive and controlling shareholder of Singapore-based Megaspeed, which purchased $4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips over two years.
“How do they know the chips went to the company and not to the Communist Party of China?” asked Sen. John Kenneday, R-La. “This whole thing is an intergalactic freak show!”
For now it appears Huang was a smart man, making smart chips who fell for the oldest trick in the international spy playbook. Did he never watch a James Bond movie, like maybe “From Russia With Love?”
Nvidia’s board blundered too, expressing confidence in Huang on Sunday, but then announcing his resignation on Thursday after learning about more women.
Without a clear succession plan, the board tapped Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress to the company while it searches for Huang’s replacement.
And the revelations keep coming. Reuters reported Friday that Huang misled Nvidia’s top lawyer and marketing chief about his relationship with Alice Huang.
China has got to be laughing all the way down the AI raceway as it continues to advance in its quest for global technological dominance.
Imagine Elon Musk getting booted from Tesla and SpaceX under similar circumstances. Musk does plenty of business with China, and SpaceX is a major defense contractor. Could Beijing bring him down with a honeypot sting?
Probably not. Given all his baby mamas, the Chinese might have too much trouble finding a woman he hadn’t already met.
Never believe it’s lonely at the top. CEOs frequently kiss away their high-powered, high-paying jobs after having affairs that were clearly out of sync with their corporate ethics codes.
Read More: Lost In Love (Business Blunders)
Affairs are risky. You don’t want to bring a bug home to your spouse. And you don’t want to bring one back to your $4 trillion company and the entire nation that helped it succeed.
Our sleepy watchdog
Here we stand in the Golden Age of Grift and Folly, and the nation’s top securities regulator is sitting on its hands.
The Securities and Exchange Commission says it brought just 348 enforcement actions in fiscal 2026, down 24% from the previous year and the fewest since 1991.
Financial penalties and other monetary remedies plunged to about $1.1 billion, their lowest level since 2008.
If you don’t like what a corporate ne’er-do-well did to your portfolio, you’re just going to have to hire your own damn lawyer and sue.
Indeed, securities class-action filings jumped 30% in the first half of 2026 compared with the previous six months.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is giving fraudsters new ways to impersonate executives, fabricate evidence and fleece investors. The FBI reported a record $20.9 billion in internet crime losses in 2025, up 26%. That figure includes $8.65 billion worth of investment fraud.
Grifters never had it so good.
This Week’s Ponzi
Agridime offered investors a way to make money on cattle without dirtying their boots: Pay $2,000 for a steer or heifer, and the Fort Worth company would raise it, process it and sell the meat.
Turns out it was moving a lot of manure around in the barnyard. Trial evidence showed that it collected more than $240 million from more than 2,200 victims between January 2021 and December 2023, using new buyers’ money to pay earlier ones. It also sold contracts for 60,000 more cattle than it actually controlled.
Brothers Joshua and Jason Link used investors’ money to live high on the hog, buying a $1.5 million, five-bedroom recreational “barndominium” and a Hummer.
A federal jury on Nov. 10 convicted them of conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering. Four others have already pleaded guilty.
America’s Ponzi epidemic never ends because everyone loves a braggadocios cowboy. Like they say in Texas, “Big hat. No cattle.”
Pardon my Ponzi
Take a look at this three-time Ponzi schemer who earned his place in the Business Blunders Hall of Shame as perhaps the single most defective product of President Donald Trump’s pardon industry.
Read More: Eliyahu Weinstein – Optimus Investments
Don’t Miss These Blunders
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Stupidity Three alleged fraudsters used AI to impersonate CEOs and lawyers, tricking corporate employees into wiring $129 million overseas. Apparently, nobody thought to call the real boss.
CVS Goes To Seed. They tried to build a daisy chain. Now they’re in the weeds. And America’s healthcare costs keep mushrooming.
Blockhead Buddies On A Blockchain A felon pardons a felon and embraces a dictator. Any wonder why crypto exchange Binance got hacked for $6.3 billion?
Holiday In Cambodia Villa Vie Residences sold customers a permanent vacation at sea. Then it stranded them in Southeast Asia after failing to adequately hedge the one commodity a cruise line can’t operate without.
Rapist Rainmakers The Alexander brothers brought billions to Douglas Elliman while the prestigious brokerage allegedly ignored warnings of sexual assault. Now the firm is stuck with the fallout.
David H. Brooks – DBH Industries War made him rich. Fraud made him richer. A $10 million bat mitzvah made him infamous.
The Golden Age Of Grift Americans finally agree on at least one thing: Our politicians are ripping us off while an affordability crisis rages.
Jeffrey Skilling – Enron He left for ‘personal reasons.’ He had personally committed fraud.
Tiptoe Through The Escrow A New York attorney loaned $336 million in client funds to a 33-year-old apartment investor. Now Flagstar Bank is getting dragged into an alleged Ponzi scheme surrounding the mess.
Suicide Is Not Painless Executives, entrepreneurs and investors who died by suicide amid business failures, financial losses and corporate scandals. And a reminder that no business blunder is worth a life.
The Great American Rinse Cycle When Chinese money-laundering networks need a bank, where else would they turn but Bank of America?
Pharma Bro Can’t Help Himself Martin Shkreli went to prison. He was also banned from the pharmaceutical industry for life. Regulators say he keeps coming back for another dose.
Billy McFarland – Fyre Festival Prison didn’t end the party. It was just an intermission.
Desperately Seeking Diesel When Trump runs low on fuel, it’s ‘Fill ’er up, Vladimir’
100 Quadrillion Japanese Dogs Kishu Inu founder Alexander Sisemore allegedly bagged $9 million in a crypto ‘rug pull,’ dumping his secret stash of the meme coins on investors. Will crypto enthusiasts buy anything with a dog on it?
Jérôme Kerviel – Société Générale He cost his bank billions. But who left the vault door open?
If the Shoe Doesn’t Fit … Nike Can Wear It What a tech CEO didn’t know: People like to try on shoes before they buy them.
Don Lapre – The Making Money Show His greatest money-making secret was selling money-making secrets.
Charlie Javice – Frank She was startup wunderkind with student loan website. She gave JPMorgan Chase a $175 million education.
The Fake Andy Warhols The art was fake. The provenance was fake. Even the email address was fake. Now the dealer is missing.
Florida Man Takes Cops For A Ride It takes a lot of balls to rip off police. Pension administrator employee Michael D. Williams settles civil fraud charges without admitting or denying the allegations.
Scamway The granddaddy of multilevel marketing gets stuck with a record $225 million settlement as regulators finally crack down on Amway.
Catch And Release Kevin Kolenda kept getting caught selling bogus prize insurance. He never stopped casting for suckers.
The Sins Not Even Trump Can Pardon Nikola founder Trevor Milton got a presidential pardon. It won’t erase the financial consequences of his fraud.
Some of your best work yet!
We’ve gone from followthey money to follow the phallus. 🙄