Nvidia ‘preparing to oust’ Jensen Huang, allegation of second affair emerges

Nvidia’s board is preparing to oust chief executive Jensen Huang after he had two extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter.

The board was meeting on Thursday afternoon (AEDT) to determine his future, according to reports, in a move that risks major disruption to the $US4.1 trillion ($6 trillion) chip company that is vital to artificial intelligence development.

The company has been working with an outside firm to identify potential replacements for Huang and is weighing the idea of naming a temporary chief while searching for a permanent one, according to Bloomberg.

The New York Times reported that Huang, 63, had engaged in the second affair with one of his subordinates, 48-year-old Kimberly Powell. She is Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare. Nvidia’s code of conduct instructs staff to avoid situations that could create conflict, including “personal relationships”.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The reports come days after Huang acknowledged having been unfaithful to his wife of more than 40 years, Lori Huang, as Nvidia’s board investigates whether he was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation.

The woman who US intelligence agencies concluded had targeted Huang is called Alice Huang (no relation).

Nvidia’s shares were down about 7 per cent in after-hours trading on the ousting report. If that is reflected when the market opens in New York, it would represent a hit of about $US300 billion to the value of the company and about $US10 billion to Jensen Huang’s net worth on paper.

Huang founded Nvidia in 1993 and first built it into a successful maker of graphics cards before pivoting to artificial intelligence. Its chips in that sector are the best in the world, making them crucial in the geopolitical race for AI dominance.

The United States has restricted the sale of cutting-edge Nvidia chips to China. Alice Huang was the boss of a company called Megaspeed, which was based in Singapore and could therefore get around the blacklist to buy billions of Nvidia’s products. The US Department of Commerce halted and then transferred an investigation into Megaspeed for allegedly smuggling advanced AI chips to China late last year after an intervention from Nvidia, the Times reported. The same department has also delayed a push from other parts of the US government to place Megaspeed on a list of entities connected to the Chinese government that pose a security risk, according to reports.

Jensen Huang apologised on Sunday for being unfaithful to his wife. “My actions hurt her and our children,” he said in a note to staff. “There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

He said he would co-operate with a law firm that Nvidia’s board has commissioned to help it investigate his dealings with his paramour.

“I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America’s national security,” Huang said.

Nvidia’s board said on November 8 that it had “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised” by Huang’s affair. “The board’s inquiry will examine all available information,” it added.

As well as Huang, the company’s board consists of 10 directors, many of whom are corporate or finance veterans who have held seats for years.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun denied said: “The so-called Chinese spy narrative is purely a groundless accusation, slander, and a smear.”

Nvidia has also become critical to financing the broader AI sector by engineering hundreds of billions in loans to its customers to buy its chips. That has contributed to fears of an AI bubble and raised the prospect that Nvidia itself has become too big to fail.

Huang is also close to US President Donald Trump and flew on Air Force One as part of a recent delegation of prominent American chief executives to China.

Trump – who had been briefed on the plot targeting Huang months ago and did not appear to take action – backed Huang this week, saying the chief executive had been unaware of his lover’s identity.

“I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he’ll be in good shape,” Trump said at a White House briefing.

Huang only owns about 3.6 per cent of Nvidia, according to filings from this year. Unlike other tech tycoons such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Huang does not hold shares with disproportionate voting rights that let him exercise formal control over the company.

But he has led the firm for its entire existence, overseen its groundbreaking chips, and structured it so that he is indispensable to its operations. Huang has about 60 direct reports and no clear successor.

With Reuters, Bloomberg

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