Jensen Huang should resign. As I told @BusinessInsider's @saraheneedleman, I don't see how he can stay on as CEO of Nvidia. I understand to most shareholders this will seem unimaginable. The man personally built the American semiconductor industry. He created Nvidia, conceived of the GPU, and scaled it into the backbone of the modern intelligence economy. He has personally run the company for 30+ years, commanding an incredible number of direct reports and directly overseeing every aspect of the company's operations. But this is a truly extraordinary case—an immense misjudgment that opened the company up to unimaginable reputational and legal liability, which will continue to haunt it in the eyes of Republicans and Democrats alike. And so, for the first time in its history, the board really does need to distinguish between the interests of Jensen Huang the man, and the $4 trillion company he's created. It's not just that the CEO of the world's largest company engaged in an extramarital affair. He did so with a customer—posing a massive conflict of interest. It's also clear this was more than a "potential" conflict of interest. The New York Times is reporting that, in addition to shipping Megaspeed huge quantities of its AI chips, Nvidia—under Mr. Huang's supervision—actually did attempt to intervene in the U.S. government's criminal investigation of that customer, Mr. Huang's girlfriend. This was a massive betrayal of President Trump's trust. And it wasn't just any customer. It was a woman allegedly operating as a spy for China's intelligence service—running a company that served as a middle-man for one of China's largest AI labs (Alibaba). And both the Commerce Department and the Department of Justice seem to believe this may have been happening in violation of U.S. law. We don't know what information might have been shared in the course of Mr. Huang's personal relationship—be it about Nvidia, its products, its customers, or senior officials across the Trump administration. If I were a major Nvidia partner today, I would be asking questions about what kind of information about my company might have been inadvertently shared with Ms. Huang. We can't trust Nvidia to conduct or abide a truly independent investigation. Under Mr. Huang's supervision, representatives from the company have made statements about this case that we now know to be false. It really doesn't matter what you think of the merits of American export control policy, or whether you agree with Jensen about open-source. This was a betrayal of Nvidia's shareholders, its customers, American security interests, and potentially U.S. law. The company deserves better. The semiconductor industry deserves better. And so I believe, for the first time in its history, Nvidia needs to seriously consider new leadership and a post-Jensen governance plan.

Some extremely hot takes: 1. I’ve been saying for months (and still think) that the CCP is growing concerned about AI misuse risk—and so Chinese labs are likely to restrict access to their frontier releases, for exactly the reasons Anthropic outlines. 2. Ironically, Anthropic publishing this blog could meaningfully *push back* the timeline of when Chinese models get restricted, or deter the CCP from taking action to begin with. It backs Chinese AI developers into a corner and risks an unintended Streisand Effect, which could make China double down on its existing open-source posture. If American executives really are concerned about the democratization of destructive cyber capabilities from Chinese open-weight models, probably the best course of action is to shut up about them—and let China’s security services arrive independently at the inevitable policy conclusion.

Haven’t seen the White House use “CPC” in an official communication before — it’s almost always “CCP” (yes, even when rendering official titles). Unlike most pedantic details like the menu or color of the tablecloths, this one really matters to the Communist Party.

ISW is seeking a full-time Russia Researcher to join the Russia Team, which produces daily open-source analysis of the war in Ukraine, the geostrategic dynamics of Russian domestic and foreign policy, and how those dynamics affect U.S. national security interests. The role requires flexible and, at times, unpredictable hours, including weekend and holiday coverage as needed. Qualifications include a bachelor's degree in a related field, with a master's degree preferred, as well as professional working proficiency in Russian. Ideal candidates will have strong open-source research, analytical, and writing skills, along with a solid understanding of Russian political dynamics and military operations. The role also involves collaborating across research teams, mentoring interns, and publishing findings through written, graphical, and oral briefings. (1/2)

NEW: The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to greatly exaggerate the extent of Russian advances across the frontline to construct a false narrative of Russian battlefield progress for domestic and international audiences. The unusual MoD statement comes in the midst of Russian State Duma elections and shortly before the convening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Other Key Takeaways: The Russian MoD also tried to deny Ukrainian successes in the Lyman direction by presenting an inaccurate picture of the battlefield that denies the ample evidence provided by Russian milbloggers, Ukrainian sources, and geolocated footage. The Russian MoD’s claims likely aim to shape Russian voters' perceptions of the war during the ongoing State Duma elections as well as the perceptions of foreign governments that support Ukraine. Ukrainian forces extensively targeted Russian drone operators as part of their battlefield-shaping effort that enabled Ukrainian drone overmatch prior to Ukraine’s Operation Vivaldi in the Lyman direction. The US Department of State approved on September 18 the sale of air defense equipment worth $2.68 billion to Ukraine. US President Donald Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act on September 18. Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the eastern Fortress Belt and Oleksandrivka directions, while Russian forces recently advanced in the southern Fortress Belt direction. Russia launched two Zirkon anti-ship missiles and 174 drones and loitering munitions at Ukraine overnight.

The RUMINT cycle is in high gear in Europe, so I'd warn people not to be taken by confirmation bias - when you're looking for signs of imminent miltary action, any miltary movement is going to look like it.

Australia is deeply concerned by reports of ramming and dangerous manoeuvres towards a Philippine fisheries vessel by a China Coast Guard vessel in the South China Sea. Such actions are unsafe and destabilising.

We STRONGLY CONDEMN the China Coast Guard’s DELIBERATE RAMMING of the Philippine BFAR vessel near Bombay Shoal, just 54 miles off the coast of Palawan. We commend the sustained professionalism of our Philippine Allies in the face of this dangerous, destabilizing act.

I have a new essay in the @nytimes this week. The topic: Why Americans Hate Data Centers. And more important: the only thing those building the data centers can do about it. 🧵

AI policy is becoming politicized. Instead of arguing about the identities and affiliations of people in the space, I think it’s better to focus squarely on the quality of their arguments and ideas: What can the models can do, how do they work, and—as AI systems grow more sophisticated—what steps can we take to keep humans in the loop? I enjoyed speaking with @WNGdotorg’s Grace Snell for this deeply-researched piece on AI’s growing capabilities. The bottom line is that it’s getting harder for researchers to monitor LLM reasoning. This is legitimately dangerous and could put new threats to critical infrastructure as AI is trusted with acting autonomously of human oversight. Labs and the U.S. government need a serious plan for what to do about it.

"His pitch to foreign governments is simple: link arms — fast — with the U.S. to oppose Beijing’s “systemic weaponization” of the global supply chain or risk losing control of tech infrastructure to 'people who don’t have our best interests at heart.'"

There are ways to construct the exemption that would make sure companies wouldn’t collude. And the law isn’t clear! The guidelines on this topic were pulled during the Biden administration. I wrote a paper all about this:

They used Opus 5 to pull off the hack. It appears they had access to the loosened cyber-guardrail version of Opus. They successfully accessed the OAI internal monorepo. The question that will be asked is, if these three guys can pull this off, what can a nation state do.