Jensen Huang's self-sabotage sends Nvidia into a midlife crisis

Nvidia CEO and founder Jensen Huang has been ousted after nearly two weeks of controversy that, at times, felt more like a soap opera than reality: a wealthy businessman, reported affairs, and an alleged Chinese spy and GPU smuggler.

For Nvidia’s board, it seems there was no question Huang had to go. The man behind what was recently the most valuable company in the world proved too big a liability to retain in any capacity. He was too toxic even for a demotion from CEO to chairman, a vantage point that would have retained Huang as the face of the company even if he could no longer be trusted to run it.

Replacing him won’t be so easy. Nvidia now faces an identity crisis. Huang, who has led the company for more than three decades, has no clear successor. The GPU slinger has no shortage of brilliant engineers, but executives capable of wrangling one of the biggest and most influential brands in the world, not so much.

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Ian Buck, father of CUDA and Nvidia’s VP of hyperscale and HPC is currently favored by many to be Huang’s successor. Buck has taken on a more public role within Nvidia in recent years headlining keynotes at events like Supercomputing and the AI Infra Summit.

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CFO Colette Kress, a bean counter who’s kept Jensen’s ambitions grounded for more than a decade, now takes the reins as interim CEO while the board searches for its next figurehead.

And while Kress fights to contain the chaos, others will no doubt capitalize on Huang’s controversial choice of consorts to advance their own agendas.

A marred reputation

One need only ask a few inconvenient questions to cast doubt on Nvidia’s loyalties. How deep does China’s influence in Nvidia go? Can Nvidia’s hardware still be trusted? You get the idea.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Nvidia’s and, by extension, Huang’s loyalties have been called into question. In late 2023, Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman blasted rival Nvidia for supplying GPUs to China in spite of US export controls, calling the behavior “un-American” and likening the graphics titan to an AI arms dealer.

Nvidia has also faced criticism from US government officials, including former commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, for failing to take a hint and trying instead to limbo under US export controls in order to continue selling chips to the Middle Kingdom.

After the Trump administration's short lived blockade of H20 sales early last year cost the company some $10.5 billion, Huang spent much of the 2025 lobbying the Trump administration to reverse export bans on the sales of older Hopper generation GPUs to China, an endeavor which ultimately proved successful.

One could make the case that Huang’s ongoing efforts to sell Nvidia’s chips to China were financially motivated. But that argument is undermined by Huang admitting to having an extramarital affair with Megaspeed exec Alice Huang (no relation), a woman that US intelligence has accused of moonlighting as a Chinese spy and helping to smuggle GPUs into the country.

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The consequences of controversy

When technology and politics collide, the appearance of impropriety is often more damning than the impropriety itself. 

Uncle Sam has forced Chinese companies out of the United States for the mere possibility that they could be coerced into planting back doors in critical infrastructure. Just ask Huawei whether the truth counts for anything once Washington has decided that you’re a national security threat.

Huang’s affairs may not just cost him his job, but could cost Nvidia key government contracts and make the company’s hardware less attractive, particularly in highly-regulated and notoriously risk-averse industries.

Rival chipmakers will no doubt capitalize on Nvidia’s bad optics if Huang’s departure doesn’t pop the AI financing merry-go-round bubble first – Nvidia's stock lost about 25% of its value in the few days after news about Huang started breaking, only recovering slightly after his ouster. Regardless, with Nvidia’s reputation marred and its future shrouded in uncertainty, once loyal customers may be more willing to explore alternative providers.

There are certainly plenty to choose from. Amid a surge in custom AI chips from the likes of Broadcom, Marvel, and others, Nvidia’s main advantage wasn’t so much technological as it was simply considered a safe bet. 

AMD is the most obvious winner here. As we reported earlier this year, the House of Zen’s GPU tech has already surpassed Nvidia’s, at least on paper. What’s more, the company has a long and unblemished relationship serving the US government. AMD’s chips now power two of the Department of Energy’s three largest and most sensitive supercomputers.

Meanwhile, hyperscalers with sufficient cashflow – think Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta – may seek to insulate themselves from Huang’s fallout by investing more heavily in homegrown silicon and offering it to customers. 

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Then there's the threat from the man himself. Huang's ambitions and influence are such that he's unlikely to fade into obscurity. He may disappear from the spotlight while things blow over, but it’s a pretty sure bet that he’ll pop up at a new company eventually, and will still have enough sway to poach some of Nvidia’s top engineers. ®