Jensen Huang, the leather-jacketed architect of the artificial intelligence boom, resigned as chief executive of Nvidia on Thursday after revelations of two extramarital affairs, including one with a woman accused of spying for China. The scandal has wiped almost half a trillion dollars off Nvidia's market valuation and has raised national security fears across an AI industry now navigating uncharted waters.
The woman involved is Alice Huang, a former senior executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed; the two are not related. US intelligence reportedly circulated a memo this spring alleging she was an asset of China's Ministry of State Security, and Beijing has rejected the allegations. Huang, who has been married to his wife Lori for over 40 years, admitted to the affair on Sunday. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported a second affair, citing video of Huang being affectionate with Nvidia's vice president of health care, Kimberly Powell.S1
Huang, who spent 33 years at the helm of the company he co-founded, gave up his board seat as well, and Nvidia did not give a reason for his departure. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor, and the board named Harvey Jones, a former chief executive of chip design software firm Synopsys, as chair. The company said it expected operations and its product roadmap "to continue without interruption." Huang is Nvidia's largest individual shareholder, with a stake of about 3.6 percent.S1
Lawmakers moved quickly to pursue the matter. Republican Senator Tim Scott, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said he was requesting Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify in December, writing on X that "recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive US technology." Three House of Representatives committees have also called for a closed-door interview with Huang on December 1, on threat of subpoena.S1
Huang's departure carries weight beyond the boardroom. Nvidia's processors, once designed for video game graphics, became a crucial ingredient for training and running the technology after the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022 sparked a global rush to develop AI. Huang had also been a close informal adviser to President Donald Trump on AI and had spent years lobbying against curbs on sales of advanced AI chips to China. Trump, who stood by Huang throughout the scandal, said former Apple boss Tim Cook should take over, calling it "A Legend replaces a Legend!"S1
