Supermicro CEO: ‘No one’ beyond indicted employees were part of alleged $2.5 billion chip smuggling

Super Micro Computer CEO Charles Liang spoke out during the company’s fiscal third quarter earnings call to deliver a message. “No one” at the company besides three indicted employees—including cofounder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw—were involved in what prosecutors have called an elaborate scheme to smuggle servers to China in violation of U.S. export controls, said Liang. The stock rose 18% in after-hours trading.

The server manufacturer’s third quarter earning call on Tuesday was the first since Liaw and two other defendants were indicted in a criminal investigation over U.S. export controls and an alleged scheme to smuggle $2.5 billion in servers to China.

Michael Staiger, the VP of corporate development, informed analysts at the onset of the quarterly call that the company would focus on financial results during the call’s Q&A portion. Unmoved, analysts started the Q&A with questions about the indictment fallout. Staiger said based on what’s known right now, Supermicro doesn’t think it will need to restate earnings, nor does it believe more employees were involved.

Later, when another analyst raised the topic of the investigation and the impact on the company again, Staiger attempted to gently rebuff the question by “going back to my earlier comments” that Supermicro itself was not named in the federal indictment. He said there was nothing more to add besides that the company takes the allegations “seriously” and is conducting an internal, board-led investigation into the alleged conduct of those involved.

That’s when, Liang, the CEO, chairman, and co-founder, jumped in.

“Based on what we know so far, though that could change as the investigation progresses, no one from the company other than those named in the DOJ indictment were involved,” said Liang. “So we have very good confidence [in] our integrity.”

Liang did not offer evidence or attribute his declaration to counsel or law enforcement. Given that Liang is a member of executive management and the investigation is being led by lead independent director Scott Angel and audit chair Tally Liu, it’s unclear how involved or what details he might have from the ongoing investigation that would lead him to claim no one else from Supermicro was involved beyond the three named in the indictment.

A PR representative for Supermicro did not elaborate, but noted that Liang qualified his comment by noting his view was based on what the company knows and could change.

Supermicro has been contending with allegations that a senior vice president and board member—who has since been fired—organized and helped carry out an elaborate scheme to violate export controls. In March, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Liaw and two other workers with illegally routing servers with Nvidia GPUs to China.

Federal prosecutors have accused Liaw of concealing the scheme from auditors and the company, while successfully fooling inspectors attempting to verify export compliance with a warehouse he allegedly organized and filled with thousands of fake servers. Prosecutors accused Liaw and the two other defendants of allegedly using hair dryers to steam shipping labels off packages to set up the fake warehouses in order to illegally route the servers to China in 2024 and 2025. The scheme allegedly involved $2.5 billion in server hardware and highly coveted Nvidia GPUs. 

Liang and Supermicro were not named in the indictment; Liaw has pleaded not guilty and is free on a $5 million bond.  

The company announced on April 7, following Liaw’s indictment, that it would conduct a board-led independent investigation into the allegations in the DOJ’s indictment. However, the company said in its announcement the investigation has “no definitive timetable” and that an update would come only when the investigation was complete. 

“I am personally shocked and saddened”

Early on Tuesday as Supermicro announced its third quarter fiscal 2026 financial results, Liang tried to distance himself from Liaw, who cofounded Supermicro together with Liang and Liang’s wife Sara Liu back in 1993. Liu was also not named in the indictment. 

“I must be clear. Supermicro is not a defendant, nor a target of a grand jury investigation, and Supermicro has zero tolerance for any employee who violates federal law and regulation,” said Liang at the start of the analyst call. “I am personally shocked and saddened by these alleged actions, which in no way represent the values or ethics of this company.”

Liang also sought to reassure analysts that Supermicro’s relationships with its vendors, which include $5 trillion Nvidia, were still “strong.” Following the indictment, questions were raised about Supermicro’s continued access to Nvidia GPUs given the allegations.

Liang said partnerships with GPU suppliers and component providers Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and Broadcom go back a long time. 

“We feel our partnership [will] stay as strong, if not stronger, at least as strong as before,” said Liang. “We continue to work together on lots of new projects.”

Chief financial officer David Weigand affirmed: “Our understanding is there is no change in allocation.”

Liang also told analysts during the call that most customers feel “pretty solid” about continuing their business with Supermicro and continuing to “grow together.”

Supermicro’s financial results saw revenue of $10.2 billion for Q3, up 123% year over year, although down 19% from last quarter. The company said the decline was the result of short-term customer delays related to data centers that weren’t yet equipped with the power and networking infrastructure needed to accept server deliveries. However, Supermicro expects to recognize the deferred revenue in coming quarters. 

In addition, Supermicro’s gross margins—a longtime pain point for investors—rose to 10.1%, up from 6.4% the previous quarter. The margin change was driven by a shift in the customer mix toward enterprise buyers, said Liang, and away from a single hyperscaler that fell from 63% of revenue to 27%. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share hit $0.84, beating the company’s guidance of at least $0.60. 

Critically, Supermicro also guided to $11 billion to $12.5 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, and raised its full-year fiscal 2026 target to $38.9 billion to $40.4 billion.  

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