Trump Had Urged Nvidia’s Jensen Huang to Fight for His Job

President Trump called Jensen Huang on Tuesday, before the Nvidia chief stepped down amid a rapidly unfolding spy scandal, and urged him to keep fighting for his job, according to two people briefed on the conversation.

The call was the latest instance of Mr. Trump defending and protecting Mr. Huang, who had become a high-profile ally and an influential adviser on artificial intelligence. The president continued to back him to the end, even after U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Mr. Huang was having an affair with a woman believed to be a Chinese spy.

Nvidia announced on Thursday that Mr. Huang, who built the company into the world’s leading supplier of advanced A.I. chips, had been replaced as chief executive following revelations not just of the affair with the woman suspected of being a spy, but also another with one of his employees.

A representative for Mr. Huang did not provide a comment for this article. Neither Mr. Trump nor the White House responded to requests for comment about his call to Mr. Huang.

The president had been warned at least twice about Mr. Huang’s relationship with a Chinese citizen known as Alice Huang, whom intelligence agencies concluded had been recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security, The New York Times has reported. The first warning was late last year, and the second was in the spring.

Mr. Trump took no action either time, and brought Mr. Huang with him on a trip to China in May. In recent days, he has publicly praised Mr. Huang and expressed sympathy for him, saying in a social media post on Thursday that he was a “legend.”