Nvidia's Jensen Huang has resigned from his positions as company president, CEO, and member of the board, Nvidia announced Thursday morning. The move follows allegations that Huang had affairs with a business associate suspected of being a spy and with a work subordinate.
Executive vice president and CFO Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while Nvidia's board searches for a permanent replacement, the company wrote in an announcement. Kress has been with Nvidia since 2013.
“Nvidia’s strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,” said Kress. “We will continue advancing the work that has made NVIDIA a leader in accelerated computing and AI, and execute on the opportunities ahead. Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders.”
It's been a whirlwind few weeks for Nvidia and Huang: In late October, the New York Times reported that Huang had a "close relationship" with Alice Huang, a former journalist and director of Megaspeed, a company that works in data centers and cloud computing. The Times reported that US intelligence officials had been investigating Alice Huang over suspicions of being a Chinese spy, which the Chinese government has denied, and for potentially funneling Nvidia chips to Chinese buyers against regulations. The Wall Street Journal reported that Jensen Huang and Alice Huang were introduced by businessman Kang Wei, Alice Huang's husband.
Much of Alice Huang's past could not be verified by the Washington Post, which noted that "Megaspeed’s assets swelled to $3 billion in 2024 from $33 million in 2023, according to corporate filings, raising suspicions among U.S. officials that the company was routing Nvidia’s cutting-edge chips to Chinese firms in violation of U.S. export controls."
Following the allegations, on November 8, Jensen Huang admitted to having an affair in a message posted to Nvidia's website, and Nvidia's board announced it would undertake an investigation into whether Jensen Huang "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort."
On Wednesday night, the New York Times reported that Jensen Huang had had a second affair with Nvidia's vice president of health care Kimberly Powell, in contravention of Nvidia's internal policies.
Nvidia was once known among gamers for making consumer graphics cards, but since the AI boom pivoted to providing computing power to data centers. Jensen Huang has been a major figure in this boom, with Nvidia jockeying for position as the world's most valuable company in response. In October, Business Insider reported that Amazon was sitting on billions of dollars of Nvidia server racks it couldn't power.
This is a breaking story and has been updated.
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Luke Plunkett
