Supermicro's headquarters in San Jose, California It was portrayed as a sensational supply chain hack: China subverted motherboards made by San Jose, California-based Supermicro, installing spying chips the size of rice grains and opening a door to remote espionage. But Bloomberg Businessweek's story, which ran on Oct. 4, 2018, generated immediate skepticism. Technical experts said the story didn't ring true. Apple and Amazon issued unusually stern rebuttals after Bloomberg said the companies independently found the spying chips. And the U.S. National Security Agency, in a truly uncharacteristic response, said it was "befuddled" by the Bloomberg Businessweek report (see: The follow-up is an inadequate and insincere way to deal with what has been a reputational disaster for Bloomberg.