Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has resigned. What happens next? | The Verge

After the leather-jacketed CEO, president, and co-founder of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, acknowledged an affair with Megaspeed exec Alice Huang, his company initially announced an investigation. However, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that there was evidence of another affair, this time with an Nvidia executive who reported directly to him.
A board meeting that night ended with Huang’s resignation, and Nvidia CFO Colette Kress was installed as the new interim CEO.
Recent reporting noted that since last year, US intelligence reports had identified Alice Huang (no relation) as not only the exec for an AI compute company renting access to Nvidia GPUs, but also a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security. The second report focused on Huang and Nvidia vice president of healthcare Kimberly Powell, claiming that a bystander who recorded the two being “affectionate” at the hotel hosting Nvidia’s GTC developer conference in May was met by Huang’s security workers and asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
In recent years, Nvidia has become a key part of the Trump administration’s AI push, a central figure in negotiations over potential Chinese access to cutting-edge AI hardware, and a company that has used its now $4 trillion-plus market cap to finance other AI companies, including the “neoclouds” like Coreweave who have been some of its biggest customers.
Under cofounder Jensen Huang, Nvidia has become the engine for the AI boom — and one of the tech industry’s biggest environmental liabilities. Its sought-after chips have triggered a new wave of water- and chemical-intensive factories, drained power grids from inside massive data centers, and set the stage for a looming e-waste problem.
Under Huang’s leadership, Nvidia clashed with environmental groups seeking to hold the company accountable for its so-called “hidden” emissions. Huang has talked up the idea of using AI to fight climate change while his company’s supply chain emissions ballooned. Nvidia’s investments, meanwhile, have supported the buildout of data centers that have sparked intense backlash for both their local and global impact. Now, after the CEO’s shocking resignation amid a sprawling sex-and-espionage scandal, advocates are urging Nvidia to turn the page.
Usually, we’d be offering to answer your questions about a news event, but honestly we don’t really have any answers about what the hell is going on over at Nvidia. I can’t speak for Nilay but at the rate Jensen Huang’s new mistresses are dropping, I am concerned we are approaching an affair Singularity. If things don’t decelerate soon, we may be looking at existential risk. Maybe the future of AI really does depend on Jensen’s sex life, but not in the way I was thinking!
As much fun (?) as we are having with all the assorted ladies, it’s important to stay focused on what’s really important: Chips and China. President Donald Trump was reportedly warned about Alice “No Relation” Huang’s possible connections to China’s spy apparatus last year, and again before his China trip in May. Nvidia reportedly intervened into a Commerce Department investigation into Alice’s company.
Nvidia announced this morning that Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO following reports of two affairs, including one with an alleged Chinese spy and one with a direct report. The situation surrounding Huang has unfolded quickly, with The New York Times only reporting on Friday that Huang and the suspected spy were “close” before other dominoes started to fall, leading to a swift fall from grace for one of the biggest names in technology. (Hours after Huang’s resignation was announced, Reuters reported that he also had an “intimate relationship” with another Nvidia employee.)
Prominent voices in technology have come out in support of Huang, with some calling the resignation a “waste” and a sad day for “all humanity.” The narrative among those leaders on X, at least, is that Huang’s resignation was rushed — perhaps an overreaction to salacious news stories about his personal life. Some others have had a more neutral reaction, commenting more on Huang’s achievements at the company’s helm. You can see a collection of those responses below.
If you’re keeping track, that brings the number of alleged extramarital affairs by Nvidia’s now-former CEO to three, including suspected spy / Megaspeed executive Alive Huang, Nvidia’s vice president of health care Kimberly Powell, and an as-yet unnamed woman who two Reuters sources report also works for Nvidia.
Nvidia’s stock closed the day down 4.3 percent.
The Senate Minority Leader says both Nvidia and the Trump administration need to explain the national security risks they’re aware of following Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
Jensen Huang is out at Nvidia, so today’s episode starts with an emergency podcast within a podcast, as David and Nilay try to make sense of the state of Nvidia and AI. Then, Jen Tuohy comes on the show to tell us all about her time with the Apple HomeView, Apple’s new smart home controller and family computer. It’s very good at one of those things, and not so much on the other.
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I was certain, until the story of Jensen Huang’s second affair hit, that Huang was bulletproof. After all, why wouldn’t he be? He’s placed himself indispensably at the center of the AI industry and famously had no succession plan at Nvidia. In fact, he’s the only CEO Nvidia has ever had. L’état c’est moi.
Then two stories were published nearly back to back on Wednesday: one alleging Huang had an affair with his subordinate Kimberly Powell, another that the board was meeting to consider his ouster. First thing Thursday morning, Nvidia announced Huang had resigned. One of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley was out.
Today, we’re talking about the Jensen Huang scandal at Nvidia, which is developing so quickly that we had to do an emergency update of this intro minutes before publishing this episode.
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