Jensen Huang Steps Down as Nvidia CEO
Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive of Nvidia on Thursday. This ends his 33-year leadership of the AI company he co-founded. The resignation came after reports that he had two extramarital affairs, including with a woman accused of spying for China.
Nvidia's board said Huang stepped down as president, chief executive, and board member, effective immediately.
New Leadership at Nvidia
Chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while keeping her finance role. The board will look at internal and external candidates for a permanent replacement.
The company also named former Synopsys CEO and board member Harvey Jones as its first-ever board chairman.
Huang, who co-founded Nvidia, is its fourth-largest investor with a stake of about 3.61 per cent. He will also leave the board.
Nvidia Shares Fall
Nvidia shares fell more than 10 per cent in premarket trading. This also weighed on the broader market.
Reports Behind the Pressure
Pressure had been building on Huang in recent days. Reports said the 63-year-old, who is married, had an affair with a Chinese businesswoman. US authorities suspect her of spying for Beijing.
Nvidia's board met on Wednesday to consider removing him. This happened after reports that Huang also had an extramarital affair with a senior company executive who reported to him.
Impact on Nvidia and AI Industry
Huang's exit puts the $4 trillion company in uncertainty. It could disrupt the AI ecosystem that he helped fund by putting Nvidia's cash back into cloud providers, suppliers, and top industry labs.
"The risk is not that Nvidia suddenly loses its technology roadmap ... that roadmap is largely visible for the next several years. The risk is execution. Jensen has been the chief conductor of an extraordinarily complex system," said Michael Feldman, portfolio manager at ClearBridge Investments.
"In a world with real bottlenecks, that coordination is a competitive advantage in itself."
Investor sentiment toward AI stocks has already been shaky. Soaring cash burn and rising debt at traditionally cash-rich tech giants have raised doubts over whether the AI boom will pay off.
The departure could also affect US chip export policy. Huang pushed to preserve access to the Chinese market and had close ties with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Sunday that Huang had "done an amazing job for our country." Trump said the Nvidia chief told him he had no idea the Chinese woman he had an affair with was a spy.
Huang's Rockstar Status
For years, Nvidia was best known to gamers looking for top-tier graphics. But its chips' ability to perform many calculations at once made them central to the AI boom and a strategic prize in the US-China race to dominate the technology. It also made Nvidia the world's most valuable company.
This turned Huang into a rockstar CEO. Fans in Taiwan and South Korea mobbed him, asking him to sign books, posters, and sometimes even their bodies. Stocks moved at his mere mention of company names at events.
Scrutiny of his conduct grew after reports of his relationship with Alice Huang. She is a former executive at Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed. US authorities have concluded she was a Chinese intelligence asset.
The two, photographed together in Taiwan, Singapore, and California, are not related.
Washington also investigated Megaspeed, a coveted official Nvidia cloud partner with priority access to its chips. Authorities suspected it helped China obtain advanced AI chips restricted under US export controls, according to media reports. Beijing has denied Alice Huang is a spy.
Earlier this month, Nvidia's board launched a probe led by independent directors with outside legal counsel. It looked into whether Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. At the time, the board expressed confidence in him.
The controversy escalated on Wednesday when the New York Times reported that Huang also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reported to him.
