Jensen Huang, Nvidia\u2019s chief executive, resigned on Thursday after revelations that he had an affair with an executive who reported to him as well as with a woman whom U.S. officials had identified as a Chinese spy.<\/p>\n
The chip company\u2019s 10-member board met for several hours Wednesday evening and agreed to name Colette Kress, the company\u2019s chief financial officer, as interim chief executive, until a permanent successor has been named. The board said on Thursday<\/a> that it would begin a search for a permanent replacement and would consider internal and external candidates.<\/p>\n Nvidia also appointed Harvey Jones, a longtime tech entrepreneur and investor, as the chip company\u2019s chairman. In a statement, Mr. Jones said that the board was confident in Ms. Kress and the executive team and that it expected \u201cthe company\u2019s operations, customer commitments and product road map to continue without interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Huang\u2019s exit opens an uncertain chapter for Nvidia, the premier maker of artificial intelligence chips, and will have widespread ripple effects. The Silicon Valley firm is a linchpin of the A.I. boom and one of the world\u2019s most valuable public companies, controlling an estimated 90 percent of the market for the computer chips used in the big A.I. projects that are driving the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n That dominance has made Mr. Huang one of the world\u2019s wealthiest people, as well as an ally of President Trump\u2019s. Mr. Trump was previously informed about Mr. Huang\u2019s relationship with the woman believed to be a Chinese intelligence asset but took no action. He has defended Mr. Huang over the past week, saying he was an \u201chonorable man\u201d who did not know the woman was a Chinese agent.<\/p>\n Few Silicon Valley executives \u2014 with the possible exception of Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, and Steve Jobs of Apple \u2014 have been as synonymous with their companies as Mr. Huang, 63. He was a founder of Nvidia in 1993. He manages all aspects of its business as chief executive, and his family members have steadily risen through the company\u2019s ranks. With a 3.56 percent stake, he is also Nvidia\u2019s largest individual shareholder. He has had such a tight grip on the company that there is no clear successor.<\/p>\n \u201cJensen is very much the command and control,\u201d said Patrick Moorhead, the founder of Moor Insights & Strategy, a technology research firm. \u201cJust like nobody replaced Steve Jobs and ran the company like him, nobody can replace Jensen. There has to be a different operating system.\u201d<\/p>\n Any fallout may widen because Nvidia has also pumped money into A.I. start-ups, cloud companies, data centers and other chip suppliers. With Mr. Huang as the ringleader, the company spread its tentacles across the A.I. industry and put itself at the epicenter.<\/p>\n Public scrutiny of Mr. Huang began after The New York Times first reported<\/a> last month that American intelligence agencies had discovered that he had developed a close relationship with a Chinese citizen and chip buyer, who U.S. officials concluded was gathering intelligence for Beijing.<\/p>\n The chip buyer was Alice Huang or Huang Le, whose biography said she worked in China as a TV reporter before becoming a top executive at a Singapore-based data center company called Megaspeed that had become one of Nvidia\u2019s biggest customers in Southeast Asia. Megaspeed has bought more than $4.8 billion in chips since June 2024.<\/p>\n The relationship raised questions of U.S. national security, given that the U.S. government had barred Chinese companies from buying the advanced chips. It also stoked geopolitical concerns as the United States and China compete for dominance in A.I.<\/p>\n China has denied the espionage claims. Ms. Huang has not responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Nvidia\u2019s board has largely been supportive of Mr. Huang, who is also on the board. The other members include outside executives and the company\u2019s early investors and longtime partners. They have served on the board for a combined 161 years, and many have a long history with Mr. Huang.<\/p>\n But after The Financial Times reported last week that Mr. Huang\u2019s relationship with Ms. Huang was romantic, Nvidia\u2019s board said on Sunday that it was opening an investigation<\/a> into his conduct. It hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz<\/a> to help lead its investigation.<\/p>\n That same day, Mr. Huang admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife, Lori Huang, to whom he has been married for 41 years. He said he was \u201cproud and grateful to be an American\u201d and apologized for his behavior.<\/p>\n \u201cMy family bears no responsibility for my choices \u2014 I do,\u201d he said in a message to Nvidia employees. \u201cPlease give them privacy.\u201d His two children, Madison and Spencer, also work at the company.<\/p>\n Mr. Huang\u2019s acknowledgment of the affair and the company\u2019s investigation immediately set off a firestorm. Nvidia\u2019s shares are down about a third from their peak at the start of October, a decline of more than $1.5 trillion in market value.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, The Times reported that Mr. Huang also had an extramarital relationship<\/a> with Kimberly Powell, an Nvidia vice president who reports to him. Under Nvidia\u2019s code of conduct<\/a>, employees are told to \u201cavoid situations where our actions create conflict\u201d including \u201cpersonal relationships,\u201d and the company says that it \u201cpromptly investigates reports of misconduct.\u201d Many corporations have policies prohibiting managers from having relationships with subordinates.<\/p>\n Mr. Huang and Ms. Powell, 48, were captured on video being affectionate at a San Jose, Calif., hotel during an Nvidia conference in March. Ms. Powell, who is married, has not responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n After The Times approached Nvidia on Wednesday about the second affair, the board began deliberating about Mr. Huang\u2019s future at the company.<\/p>\n Ms. Kress is an Nvidia veteran who joined the company 13 years ago. She previously worked at Microsoft and Cisco. In a note to employees on Thursday, she said she believed \u201cdeeply in this company\u201d and each of its employees.<\/p>\n \u201cThis company has achieved so much because of the work that all of you bring to it every single day,\u201d Ms. Kress said. \u201cYou are our greatest strength\u201d She added that there would be a company meeting on Wednesday to discuss its future.<\/p>\n Nvidia reports its next quarterly earnings on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Kalley Huang contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jensen Huang, Nvidia\u2019s chief executive, resigned on Thursday after revelations that he had an affair with an executive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[177084,182,382264,261282,181,507,262615,144,382263,7510,7511,302301,126432,324638,382213,382262,300340,94976,74],"class_list":["post-914997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-adultery","tag-ai","tag-alice-technology-executive","tag-appointments-and-executive-changes","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-boards-of-directors","tag-china","tag-colette","tag-computer-chips","tag-computers-and-the-internet","tag-espionage-and-intelligence-services","tag-huang","tag-industrial-espionage","tag-jen-hsun","tag-kress","tag-live-detached","tag-nvidia-corporation","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}