Jensen Huang’s departure as chief executive of Nvidia marks an extraordinary reversal for the founder who transformed a graphics-chip business into one of the most influential companies in the artificial intelligence industry. The 63-year-old Taiwanese-born businessman was replaced on Thursday after revelations about two extramarital relationships, one involving a woman alleged to be a Chinese intelligence operative and the other a senior Nvidia executive under his supervision. The company’s board has presented his departure as a resignation, appointing chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive while it searches for a permanent successor.
The controversy has developed into a corporate and national security affair, drawing in the White House, US intelligence agencies and the wider semiconductor industry. Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese businesswoman who headed Singapore-based Megaspeed, prompted an investigation into whether confidential information about Nvidia and US artificial intelligence policies had reached Beijing. Megaspeed was alleged to have purchased millions of dollars’ worth of advanced Nvidia chips for subsequent smuggling into China, circumventing Washington’s restrictions on technology exports. The allegations have not established the full extent of any information transfer or the circumstances surrounding the relationship.
Huang acknowledged the extramarital relationship after the revelations emerged about 10 days before his departure. Nvidia’s board subsequently opened an investigation to establish the circumstances and potential implications for the company. The situation became more damaging on Wednesday when The New York Times reported another relationship, with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice-president of healthcare. The two were reportedly filmed behaving affectionately at a hotel in San Jose, California, after attending a developers’ conference in March.
The disclosure intensified pressure on the board, which had already been confronting concerns about the possible security implications of Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang. The company’s principal shareholders pressed for his departure amid fears that the controversy could deepen the decline in its market value and affect other businesses connected to the artificial intelligence sector. Huang, who owns approximately 4% of Nvidia, had remained its dominant executive and principal public representative.
The financial consequences had already become substantial. Nvidia lost approximately 35% of its stock market value in a month, equivalent to nearly $2 trillion in market capitalisation, according to the source report. Its shares accelerated their decline after the espionage allegations became public, falling about 8% in trading after Wednesday’s market close. Microsoft subsequently overtook Nvidia in market valuation, ending the latter’s position as the largest publicly traded company on Wall Street.
The affair also exposed Huang’s proximity to US President Donald Trump. Huang had been appointed a special adviser on artificial intelligence matters and was regularly invited to the White House and included in presidential overseas visits involving commercial negotiations. He accompanied Trump during a visit to South Korea the previous autumn and travelled with him to Beijing in May, where the US president met Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
US intelligence agencies had reportedly informed Trump about the alleged Chinese operative connected to Nvidia on at least two occasions. The first warning came a year earlier, before the presidential visit to South Korea, when Huang was lobbying the administration to relax restrictions on semiconductor sales to China. Following months of negotiations, he secured an exemption allowing Nvidia to sell chips to a limited number of Chinese companies. A second warning came through a report personally supervised by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which alerted senior White House officials to what it described as a potentially dangerous intimate relationship between Huang and the suspected operative.
Trump said this week that he did not remember receiving the reports and denied knowing the details of Huang’s relationship. He confirmed that the FBI was investigating the matter and said he had telephoned Huang to ask whether he knew his partner was a spy. According to Trump, Huang replied: “I had no idea she was a spy.” The president added: “I really believe him.” Trump also said he expected Huang to emerge favourably from the investigation.
Beyond the allegations, the departure has brought Nvidia’s internal management structure under scrutiny. Huang founded the company in 1993 after discussing the need for more powerful graphics chips with two friends over a meal. Its original business centred on improving computer graphics for increasingly realistic video games. Under his leadership, Nvidia developed into the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturer, supplying processors particularly suited to training artificial intelligence models and becoming central to the expansion of data centres.
That growth was accompanied by an unusually concentrated management structure. Huang directly supervised approximately 60 executives, reportedly prided himself on answering thousands of emails daily and maintained close oversight of customers, suppliers, business partners and investors. Unlike many major corporations, Nvidia had no designated second-in-command, no established succession plan and no president responsible for institutional representation and investor relations. Its four vice-presidents had limited prospects of moving into the chief executive position.
Questions have also emerged over the advancement of Huang’s immediate family. His children, Madison, 34, and Spencer, 35, and son-in-law Nico Caprez were appointed to senior positions, creating an unusually prominent family presence within a company of Nvidia’s scale. Madison joined in 2020 and now heads Omniverse, a software division considered important to the company’s expansion beyond hardware. She earns €1.2 million annually and regularly accompanies her father on business trips as part of a small group of trusted associates known internally as The Band.
Spencer joined Nvidia in 2022 and leads its robotics business, developing artificial intelligence models and simulation software for robots. His annual salary is €1.3 million. Both siblings initially pursued careers outside the technology company. Madison studied culinary arts and wine at the Culinary Institute of America and Le Cordon Bleu before working as a chef in New York and San Francisco and for the French luxury group LVMH. Spencer opened a cocktail bar in Taipei, Taiwan, where he developed award-winning drinks.
Their professional direction changed after they enrolled in an artificial intelligence course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019. They subsequently pursued separate MBA programmes, Spencer at New York University and Madison at London Business School. Madison met Caprez there in 2021. A former ski instructor in the Swiss Alps who later worked for Boston Consulting Group, he joined Nvidia and became one of its four vice-presidents.
Huang had previously indicated that he expected his children to succeed him, although neither had initially shown interest in the family business. “As I can be fired, the next chief executive can be hired. And, well, I like it that way,” he told Bloomberg in a recent interview. The board has now hired an executive recruitment consultancy to identify a permanent successor, leaving the family’s anticipated succession increasingly uncertain.
