Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Resigns After Reports of Three Alleged Affairs
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang resigned after reports of three alleged relationships, including one with a woman suspected of ties to Chinese intelligence. Employees are stunned, Silicon Valley allies are defending him, and the board has hired a law firm to investigate.
Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's chief executive this week after reports of three alleged romantic relationships, and the three women centre Jensen's fall from the top of the world's most valuable company. One is Alice Huang, a businesswoman suspected of being an asset of China's Ministry of State Security.
Nvidia's board has hired the law firm Wachtell Lipton to investigate. It has said it does not believe Huang compromised any secrets.
What is alleged
The first revelation was the affair with Alice Huang. China has denied she is a spy, and neither authorities nor Nvidia's board have formally accused Huang of wrongdoing in his dealings with her.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the FBI "is looking into it."
Two more alleged relationships followed. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Huang had an extramarital affair with a vice president at Nvidia. A report on Thursday described a second "intimate relationship" with an employee. Huang then stepped down. Colette Kress is now interim CEO.
Shock inside Nvidia
Current and former employees, speaking anonymously to protect relationships at the company, said staff first carried on as normal. They trusted the board to act, but few believed Huang would actually go.
Nvidia has roughly 60,000 employees. Its global turnover rate is reportedly among the lowest in tech. Workers talk of having "green in your blood," a nod to the company's signature color.
"In just three days we went from superhero cape to 'Oops, I forgot my pants,' and nobody's quite sure how to swallow that," one employee said. A former employee argued that something "more sinister" must have been in play and that affairs alone should not have cost Huang his job.
Silicon Valley rallies
Huang's peers have kept up their public support even after his exit. Venture capitalist Antonio Gracias wrote on X that "one mistake does not erase a lifetime of leadership and contribution in building NVDA," using Nvidia's ticker symbol.
Venture capitalist Sarah Guo posted that a founder who has spent 30 years building such a unique company "has earned the presumption that he should keep leading it." She wrote that a few hours before the second employee relationship was reported.
Before the later reports, industry executives said that Huang was "irreplaceable." They said his biggest mistake, apart from the relationship with Alice Huang, was admitting the affair in writing to the whole company.
Some corners of Nvidia had already been whispering. One venture capitalist, who declined to be named, recalled a recent dinner where an Nvidia executive mentioned rumors of Huang's relationship with a young Asian woman. On Monday, that investor put the odds of Huang losing his job below 10 percent.
"The wind's going to blow over on this," they said then. "People are going to hate him for three months, and forget this ever happened."
