NVIDIA’s board is preparing to remove Jensen Huang as CEO. Reputed media sources reported that the board met as early as Wednesday evening to decide his fate.
NVIDIA stock dropped 8% in after-hours trading following the report. Reportedly, NVIDIA is already working with an outside firm to identify potential replacements. The situation escalated rapidly over the past 72 hours.
On Sunday, Huang admitted in a letter to NVIDIA employees that he had an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and executive at Singapore-based chip buyer Megaspeed. US intelligence agencies believe she gathered information for Beijing.
Megaspeed purchased over $4.8 billion worth of NVIDIA chips in two years. China’s Foreign Ministry denied the espionage allegations and called them “groundless speculation.”
Then on Wednesday, the New York Times reported a second affair. This time, the other party is Kimberly Powell, an NVIDIA executive who reports directly to Huang. That revelation transformed the scandal from a national security question into a corporate governance crisis. Internal policies at major companies prohibit romantic relationships between executives and their direct reports. Analysts called the situation untenable regardless of the espionage investigation’s outcome.
NVIDIA operates without a board chair and has no public succession plan. Huang owns roughly 3.5% of the company’s shares. Because NVIDIA does not use dual-class share structures, the board controls his fate, not Huang himself.
Lead independent director Stephen Neal, chairman emeritus of law firm Cooley LLP, represents one potential interim option. However, the board hired former acting US Attorney Joon H. Kim to lead the investigation, signaling the seriousness of the probe.
For the AI industry, Huang’s removal would create an enormous vacuum. He co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and ran it for 33 years. He personally manages roughly 60 direct reports and maintains relationships with small clients himself. NVIDIA’s chips power the vast majority of AI training and inference worldwide. The company reported quarterly profits of $59.69 billion in August and ranks among the most valuable companies on Earth.
President Trump praised Huang over the weekend, calling him “brilliant” and “an honorable guy.” However, the second affair with a subordinate shifted the conversation from geopolitics to corporate governance. House Republicans are now considering issuing a subpoena to compel Huang’s testimony at a closed-door congressional briefing scheduled for November 18, one day after NVIDIA reports Q3 earnings.
NVIDIA’s market capitalization had already fallen from roughly $5.78 trillion in early October to $4.51 trillion by November 6. That $1.27 trillion decline happened before the board even announced its investigation. Wednesday’s additional 8% drop added tens of billions more to the losses.
The board’s decision will define the next chapter of both NVIDIA and the global AI industry it dominates.
