Before its probe into Mr Huang’s romantic relationship with a suspected Chinese spy was even underway, Nvidia said it had “no reason to believe” either US national security or company secrets had been compromised.<\/p>\n
Just days later, Mr Huang has resigned<\/a> effective immediately.<\/p>\n How Nvidia came to investigate Jensen Huang’s affair<\/a><\/p>\n The chief executive of the world’s most valuable company and a close ally of Donald Trump admitted to an affair with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. Here’s what we know.<\/p>\n It comes after the New York Times reported he had a second extra-marital affair with Nvidia executive Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice-president of health care, who also reported to him.<\/p>\n This week, shares in the multi-trillion-dollar tech giant tumbled, while Nvidia and Mr Huang have faced a \u200cproposed class action accusing them \u200cof \u2060defrauding \u200cshareholders<\/a>.<\/p>\n But what is perhaps most extraordinary is that Nvidia has had no obvious successor<\/a> to Mr Huang, who had run the company since it was created 33 years ago.<\/p>\n Holding the position of co-founder, president and chief executive, Mr Huang had created an unusually flat corporate structure, with about 60 executives reporting directly to him.<\/p>\n He once said he did not believe in succession planning, according to The Wall Street Journal, despite his family being woven into the company’s fabric.<\/p>\n Jensen Huang’s daughter, Madison (left), is a senior marketing director at Nvidia and Spencer (right), his son, is a product line manager in robotics. (Thu Hoang Ly\/The Mercury News\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Mr Huang was the only Nvidia insider on the company’s board, which operated without a permanent chair. Instead, a lead director was chosen annually by a majority of board members.<\/p>\n “Jensen is not replaceable \u2026 there is no other person on the management team bench that can step in seamlessly as CEO,” tech analyst Dan Ives had told Reuters.<\/p>\n After his resignation was announced, shares of Nvidia, one of the largest companies in the world, plunged 13 per cent in early Wall Street trading overnight on Thursday, dragging the broader stock market lower.<\/p>\n Jensen Huang admitted to being unfaithful to his wife after reports emerged he had developed a relationship with Alice Huang (no relation), a data centre executive at the centre of the alleged spy plot. (Reuters: CTI)<\/p>\n Mr Huang’s departure could leave the world-leading chip maker and global AI trade in an even more precarious position, according to investment analyst Jun Bei Liu.<\/p>\n “He’s the face of Nvidia and Nvidia has been front and centre of the AI build-out,” she said.<\/p>\n “If we look at how many new cloud data centre businesses have been sponsored in this circular financing world, it’s pretty much all by Nvidia.<\/p>\n “There’s just a lot of uncertainty to come \u2026 not just for Nvidia, it’s for the whole AI, the circular financing, the AI build-out, all the \u2060businesses that they co-invest and sponsor.”<\/p>\n Huang’s star power<\/p>\n Mr Huang spent decades building Nvidia into a leading developer of graphics processing units, the hardware that AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic rely on to operate.<\/p>\n One of the world’s most valuable companies, Nvidia hit a market capitalisation of $US5.7 trillion<\/a> ($8.3 trillion) at its peak in early October.<\/p>\n Jensen Huang is one of the world’s most influential figures in the tech and AI industry. (Reuters: Kim Soo-hyeon)<\/p>\n In America’s pursuit to win the AI race against China, Mr Huang emerged as a close ally of US President Donald Trump and was one of the few people known to have a direct line to him.<\/p>\n He has been to the White House at least five times since Mr Trump returned to office and just months ago he accompanied him on a trip to Beijing.<\/p>\n Mr Huang’s star power also extends to other tech billionaires such as Larry Ellison and Elon Musk, who famously begged him for more Nvidia chips.<\/a> (Already, the SpaceX founder has suggested he would hire him).<\/p>\n NYT tech reporter Ryan Mac told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing that Mr Huang was a person “that sets the tone when it comes to AI regulation or lack thereof”.<\/p>\n “He is an agenda-setter, someone that has a close relationship with Donald Trump and influences policy not just in the US but globally.<\/p>\n “This is arguably the most important person in the tech industry, certainly in AI,” he said.<\/p>\n Mac, one of the reporters who broke the story of Mr Huang’s second alleged affair, said it was “incredibly unclear” who would be tapped to succeed the former Nvidia boss.<\/p>\n “He has this kind of gravitas, this ‘key man’ placement in the company that would be very hard to replace,” he said.<\/p>\n In a statement, Nvidia said the company’s current executive vice-president and chief financial officer Colette Kress had agreed to step in as interim CEO<\/a> until a permanent successor was found.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/ad929e168b16d226bb7400e680a2a211.jpeg\")
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