Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has stepped down after revelations that he had affairs with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset and an Nvidia executive, a development that coincided with the company losing more than $600bn in market value this week. The $4.2 trillion tech giant, which supplies most of the chips powering advanced artificial intelligence technology, saw its stock slide more than 10 percent in premarket trading on Thursday.
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, was appointed interim CEO on Thursday.
Nvidia leadership and investigations
Nvidia’s board met on Wednesday night to consider removing Huang and has hired a law firm to investigate his relationship with the alleged intelligence asset. The affair has prompted investigations by the FBI and the United States Congress and has left the company facing a shareholder class-action lawsuit. Reports also say Huang had an extramarital relationship with an Nvidia vice president who reported to him.
The alleged Chinese intelligence asset, identified as Alice Huang, is a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, described as Nvidia’s primary business partner in Southeast Asia. Megaspeed, founded in 2023, is under investigation over whether it helped Chinese companies access its $4.8bn stock of powerful Nvidia chips.
Huang, 63, is Nvidia’s co-founder, president and CEO and owns about 3.6 percent of the company’s stock. He has been described as a close ally of United States President Donald Trump and has pushed to ease US restrictions on chip exports to China. Trump said earlier this week that Huang told him he had “absolutely no idea” that he was in a relationship with an intelligence operative.
Since the scandal erupted, Nvidia’s stock has tumbled, falling to a 14-year low, according to news reports.
