Nvidia Board Weighs Jensen Huang Ouster
The Jensen Huang ouster question reached Nvidia’s boardroom on Wednesday, when directors met to decide the future of the chief executive who has led the chipmaker for 33 years.
The board meeting followed reports of two extramarital affairs involving Huang, Reuters reported, citing a source familiar with the matter. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to remove him. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting, and no decision had been reported by Thursday evening.
Jensen Huang ouster: the two affairs behind the crisis
Huang told staff in a memo on Sunday, November 8, that he had been unfaithful to his wife. One affair involved Alice Huang, a former executive at the Chinese firm Megaspeed, whom US intelligence officials believe works for China’s Ministry of State Security. The board opened an independent investigation the same day, run by independent directors with outside counsel from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz.
A second affair then emerged with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, who reported to Huang. Five people who worked at Nvidia described the relationship to the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal confirmed the reporting.
The board has said it has seen no evidence that national security or company secrets were compromised, and a company spokesman said Huang was committed to continuing to lead Nvidia as chief executive without interruption.
Several members of the US Congress have called on Huang to resign. Republican Senator Kevin Cramer repeated his demand on Wednesday. President Donald Trump backed Huang on Sunday, describing him as a fine person and saying he believed the executive should remain in charge.
Shares slide as investors weigh the fallout
The uncertainty has hit Nvidia’s shares hard. The stock has lost about $600 billion in value this week, dropping Nvidia to the world’s second-most valuable company, Dawn reported. Shares fell more than 5 per cent in early trade on Thursday, after losing 7 per cent through Wednesday’s close since the board disclosed its investigation over the weekend.
Analysts say the fear is not only about the scandal. “Jensen Huang is a rockstar in the industry. He’s outspoken and synonymous with the Nvidia brand, and a leader like that is very hard to replace,” Anna Wu, founder of Floodlines Research in Sydney, told Reuters.
The selloff shows how much of Nvidia’s value investors tie to Huang himself. He co-founded the company in 1993 and turned a maker of graphics cards for gamers into the firm whose chips train and run many of the world’s largest artificial intelligence models.
Who could replace Huang?
Huang has never named a successor, and Nvidia has no public succession plan. Two names lead the list: Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress and engineer Ian Buck.
Kress, 59, joined Nvidia in 2013 after spells at Microsoft, Cisco and Texas Instruments, and has been chief financial officer for 13 years. Some board members favour her as interim chief executive, Semafor reported. “Colette Kress is the obvious choice to steady the ship,” said Josh Gilbert, lead analyst at trading platform eToro.
Buck joined Nvidia in 2004 and led the CUDA software platform that keeps developers tied to Nvidia chips. He now heads product for hyperscale AI and holds a PhD from Stanford. Analysts see him as the stronger long-term choice because Nvidia’s edge comes from its technology.
Other names in the frame include Arm chief Rene Haas, a former Nvidia executive, 32-year company veteran Jeff Fisher, and Huang’s two children, both of whom are executives at Nvidia. Betting markets gave an 83 per cent chance that Huang would resign or be removed by the end of the year, with Buck favoured as successor ahead of Kress, though trading volumes were small.
A story Feature Pakistan has tracked for days
This is the latest turn in a story that has built up over the past week. The FBI is already probing Huang over the affair and the suspected spy link, and our explainer set out the Alice Huang case in detail.
Beijing has accused Washington of using the spy claims as a pretext for a tech blockade, which shows how the personal scandal has fed into the wider US-China contest over chips. The turbulence has also spread across the AI sector, where Anthropic pulled the pricing on a $69 billion share sale.
If the board does remove Huang, it will end one of the longest and most successful runs in American business, and hand the hardest succession question in technology to a board whose longest-serving members have sat beside him since the company’s first year.
Frequently asked questions
Has Nvidia’s board removed Jensen Huang?
No decision had been reported by Thursday evening. The board met on Wednesday to decide his future after reports of two extramarital affairs.
Who are the leading candidates to replace Huang?
Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is favoured as interim chief executive, while engineer Ian Buck is seen as the strongest long-term choice.
Why did Nvidia’s shares fall?
Investors reacted to the board’s investigation and reports that directors were preparing to oust Huang, wiping about $600 billion off the company’s value this week.
What did Huang admit?
In a staff memo on November 8, he said he had been unfaithful to his wife, and the board opened an independent investigation the same day.
