Nvidia CEO to Resign Amid Controversy Over Alleged Extramarital Affair

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is stepping down, abruptly sidelining one of the AI boom’s most influential figures and injecting fresh uncertainty into the chipmaker he helped turn into an industry linchpin.

Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will take over as interim CEO as Nvidia looks for a permanent successor, the company said.

⁠It named former Synopysys CEO and board member Harvey Jones as its first-ever board chairman.

Mr Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and is its fourth-largest investor with a stake of about 3.61%, will exit the board aswell.

Nvidia shares fell more than 10% in pre-market trading and weighed on the broader market.

Pressure had been mounting on Mr Huang in recent days after reports said the 63-year-old, who is married, had an affair with a Chinese businesswoman who US authorities suspect of spying for Beijing.

Jensen Huang with Alice Huang, who US authorities have concluded was a Chinese intelligence asset

Nvidia’s board met yesterday to consider his removal, a person familiar with the matter said, after reports earlier in the day that Mr Huang also had an extramarital affair with a senior company executive who reported to him.

Mr Huang’s exit plunges the $4 trillion company into uncertainty and threatens to disrupt an AI ecosystem ‌that he helped bankroll by putting Nvidia’s cash ⁠pile back into cloud providers, suppliers and the industry’s biggest labs.

Investor sentiment toward AI stocks has already been shaky as soaring cash burn and rising debt at traditionally cash-rich tech giants fuel doubts over whether the AI boom will pay off.

The departure could also have far-reaching consequences for US chip export policy, given Mr Huang’s push to preserve access to the Chinese market and his close ties with US President Donald Trump.

Mr Trump said on Sunday that Mr Huang had “done an amazing job for our ‌country” and that the Nvidia chief had told him he had no idea the Chinese woman he had an affair with was a spy.

In a memo to employees on Sunday, Mr Huang acknowledged being unfaithful to his wife and took “full responsibility”, but gave no details about the relationship.

Nvidia’s chips’ ability made it the world’s most valuable company

Long before it became a household name beyond Silicon Valley, Nvidia was best known for powering high-end gaming graphics.

Its trajectory changed as demand surged for chips that can run many computations in parallel — a capability that has made Nvidia’s processors central to today’s AI systems and a strategic ‌prize in the US-China contest to lead the technology.

It also made Nvidia the world’s most valuable company.

That rise turned ⁠Mr Huang into a celebrity-style chief executive, with admirers in Taiwan and South Korea who ask him to sign books, posters and sometimes even their bodies.

His influence could ripple through markets: at public events, a stray mention of company names from Mr Huang has been known to move stocks.

In recent days, however, attention shifted from Nvidia’s dominance to questions about Mr Huang’s conduct, after reports linked him to Alice Huang, a former executive at ⁠Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed – who US authorities have concluded was a Chinese intelligence asset.

The two, who have been photographed together in Taiwan, Singapore and California, are ⁠not related.

Washington has also investigated Megaspeed, a coveted official Nvidia cloud partner with priority access to its chips, over suspicions it helped China obtain advanced AI chips restricted under US export controls, according to media reports.

Beijing has denied Alice Huang is a spy.

Earlier this month, Nvidia’s board launched a probe, led by independent directors with outside legal counsel, into whether Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation.

It also expressed confidence in him at the time.

Mr Huang faces a potential congressional subpoena if he does not respond to a request to provide a closed-door briefing about the allegations on his affair with a Chinese spy.

The controversy escalated yesterday when the New York Times reported Mr Huang also had an affair with ‌Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reported to him.