Christian Lamarco's Culper Research shorted Nvidia in May over Huang's 'China problem'
What's the deal? On 13 May 2026, New York short seller Culper ResearchDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, founded by 31-year-old trader Christian LamarcoDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, published a 40-page report, NVIDIA (NVDA): The China Problem, and disclosed a short position in Nvidia. "This is not a bet against AI," the firm wrote. "We are short Nvidia for one reason: the company has a significant China problem." The report, which sat largely unnoticed at the time, has been revisited this week by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, after Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang acknowledged an affair with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore customer Megaspeed International, whom US officials have alleged was a Chinese intelligence asset. China has rejected the spying claims. Culper's May report did not allege an affair or espionage.
The report: Culper argued that more than 20% of Nvidia's fiscal 2026 compute revenue was still tied to China through diversion and Southeast Asian intermediaries, even after Nvidia said that business had gone to zero following April 2025 US export restrictions. The report focused on Megaspeed, which Nvidia had described as having no Chinese shareholders. Culper said filings suggested Megaspeed was financed by Alibaba, that its balance sheet grew from $33 million at the end of 2023 to about $3 billion at the end of 2024 on $2.9 billion of refundable deposits from an unnamed source, and that Jensen Huang's relationship with Alice Huang was "uncomfortably close," citing a June 2024 gathering and a May 2025 dinner. Those diversion claims have not been independently verified. Culper, which stood to benefit if the stock fell, disclosed the short in the report and in a thread on X. CNBC covered the short on 14 May, the day after publication.
The trade: Nvidia shares were trading at $225.83 when the report came out, according to CBS News, and hit a record the next day as Huang arrived in Beijing with President Trump. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Nvidia has lost more than $1 trillion in market value and that the stock is down 20% since the report. CBS News put the decline at 25% by the close on 10 November. Lamarco has declined to say how much, if anything, Culper made from the short, or whether the firm is still betting against the stock. He told MarketWatch that Culper invests its own money and also works with partners who pay a share of winnings from trades inspired by its research.
Who is Lamarco? Lamarco grew up in upstate New York, studied finance at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, and worked at a long-short fund in Chicago from 2017 to 2019 before founding Culper, first in Pittsburgh and now in New York. The firm, a trade name of Shadyside Partners, consists of Lamarco and two analysts, according to him, and has published about 40 short reports, mostly on smaller companies. Culper's own site says it was recognised as a top-five activist short seller by Activist Insight in 2025. Lamarco told the Times, "Everyone was just mocking us, and now everyone is singing our praises," and told the Journal, "Sometimes, people care about what you have to say. Sometimes, they don't. I guess in this case, they cared six months later." At Grove City, with no Wall Street recruiting on campus, he and a classmate placed second in a Seeking Alpha student stock-pitch contest against students from top business schools, and he cold-emailed his research to hedge funds to land his first job, he told MarketWatch. He started the Nvidia work after earlier New York Times and Bloomberg reporting, paused, then resumed in March after Super Micro Computer officials were charged with smuggling Nvidia chips to China. The Nvidia report drew on interviews, including with a former senior Nvidia employee who called the Megaspeed relationship "the tip of the iceberg", Singaporean and Malaysian corporate filings, and social media posts that appeared to show the two Huangs socialising, according to CBS News and MarketWatch. Lamarco told MarketWatch his team has since found potential circumstantial evidence linking Nvidia to at least six other Southeast Asian companies showing red flags similar to Megaspeed's.
Why it matters: Short sellers have a financial interest in a falling share price, and their reports are not independent analysis. Culper's China-diversion thesis remains unproven, and Nvidia has said it found no evidence of diversion at Megaspeed. What the May report did do, six months before the intelligence reporting and Huang's admission, was flag both the China-revenue question and Huang's proximity to Alice Huang. Lamarco has not disclosed the size of the position, so any profit remains unknown. A fuller account of the board investigation and later reporting is in Dealroom's main note on the Nvidia board's response.
Sources: The Wall Street Journal, 11 November
The New York Times, 11 November
MarketWatch, 10 November
CBS News, 11 November
CNBC, 14 May 2026
Culper Research, The China Problem, 13 May 2026
TechCrunch, 9 November
De Telegraaf, 12 November
Culper Research, About
Photo: Natalie Keyssar/Bloomberg
