I didn’t panic when, after a single day of post-election ebullience, the stock market saw a sweeping, AI-fueled tech sell-off. I didn’t panic when voters across the midterm elections decided, in 40 of 41 local ballot measures, to restrict data center development. Nor did I panic when Anthropic, which originally said it was gunning for a valuation of more than $2 trillion as it began preparing its initial public offering, later this month downgraded its IPO target by 30%.

But when the news broke that Nvidia had launched an independent investigation into its CEO, founder, emperor, and god-king Jensen Huang after he confessed to having an extramarital affair with a woman accused of being a Chinese spy? Yes, I panicked. And despite President Donald Trump offering the most sympathetic possible defense that Huang “had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy,” the national security and corruption implications for Nvidia could very well jeopardize America’s entire AI-fueled economic revolution.