Nvidia preparing to oust Jensen Huang after affairs, WSJ says

Nvidia Corp.’s board is preparing to oust Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang after multiple extramarital affairs, including one with a woman who is reportedly suspected of being a Chinese spy, the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday.

The board was preparing to meet as soon as Wednesday to decide Huang’s fate at the company, the Journal reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

Nvidia’s board has been facing a succession crisis since Sunday when Huang admitted that he’d had an affair with Alice Huang, who is reportedly suspected of spying on behalf of China. The disclosure shined a light on Nvidia’s lack of a succession plan for Huang and reinforced how inseparable the 63-year-old CEO is from the company and its success.

Huang’s potential exit would reverberate far beyond the company’s operations, and not just because Nvidia is the dominant maker of chips at the heart of the AI boom. Huang is a consummate dealmaker and has used the company’s vast resources to invest in the AI supply chain and a variety of startups. He’s also a top evangelist for the AI revolution itself, downplaying fears about the risks to humanity and talking up the benefits.

Nvidia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Shares of Nvidia dropped 8% in extended trading to $159.95 at about 5:35 p.m. New York time. That’s after closing at $173.73 on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Huang had also had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, citing unidentified people who worked at the company. Huang and Powell were captured on video being affectionate at a hotel in San Jose, California, during an Nvidia conference in March, according to the Times.

Powell didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Sunday, Huang admitted to having an affair with Alice Huang, who was an executive at Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based firm that was spun out of a Chinese gaming enterprise. That data center company, which is Nvidia’s largest Southeast Asian customer, has been under U.S. investigation for months related to potential chip smuggling, Bloomberg has reported. Megaspeed and Nvidia have denied wrongdoing.