Jensen Huang has, for more than three decades, been the driving force behind Nvidia, transforming a video game graphic chipmaker into one of the most impactful companies of the AI era. Now, in a remarkable turn of events, the 63-year-old CEO may be on his way out.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Nvidia’s board is preparing to oust Huang, following allegations of a second extramarital affair, this one with a company executive who reports to him. That bombshell came just days after reports emerged of a liaison with a woman who led Singaporean data center firm Megaspeed who is also suspected of being a Chinese spy. Nvidia’s board launched an investigation after Huang acknowledged that affair, but said it has no reason to believe company secrets or national security were compromised.
The revelation of a second affair, however, this time involving a subordinate (reportedly Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare), reinforces concerns about Huang’s judgment—and perhaps alters the company’s potential legal exposure. The board was set to meet as early as today to determine his future, according to The Journal, as a scandal initially centered on national security grows into a broader crisis of corporate governance.
Should Huang indeed be given the boot, he’ll leave behind a company that helped transform modern computing—and one built to an extraordinary degree around him.
From gaming chips to AI dominance
In 1993, following stints at AMD and chipmaker LSI Logic, Huang cofounded Nvidia with engineers Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. Their bet—that increasingly sophisticated computer graphics would require specialized processors—proved to be prescient. Six years after launch, Nvidia introduced its GeForce 256, marketed as the world’s first graphics processing unit, or GPU. By handling complex visual calculations far more efficiently than general-purpose processors, GPUs basically kicked gaming into hyperdrive.
Arguably Huang’s most consequential bet came in 2006, when Nvidia introduced CUDA, a software platform that lets programmers harness GPUs for tasks beyond graphics. It was an expensive and long-term investment: Huang was banking on the idea that GPUs’ ability to perform thousands of calculations simultaneously could open up entirely new markets for Nvidia beyond video games. And boy, was he right.
In 2012, researchers used Nvidia GPUs to train AlexNet, a breakthrough neural network that helped usher in the modern era of deep learning. A decade later, the release of ChatGPT sent demand for Nvidia’s chips soaring as Silicon Valley raced to build increasingly powerful AI systems. Nvidia was ready, offering not just advanced chips but an entire software ecosystem built around them. “We are at the iPhone moment of AI,” Huang declared in March 2023.
The results of Huang’s wager have been jaw-dropping. Nvidia’s chips have become essential infrastructure for companies like Microsoft and Google, as well as a number of leading AI labs. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Nvidia reported $96.2 billion in revenue—more than double the previous year’s figure. (Of that, a staggering $89 billion came from its data center business alone.)
All the while, Huang retained an extraordinary degree of control over the company, involving himself in the minutiae of chip development and famously eschewing one-on-one meetings in favor of group discussions. He also became something of a rock star in the tech world—one who was instantly recognizable on account of his beloved leather jacket.
The risk of building a company around one person
According to Fortune, Huang has approximately 60 direct reports, an unusually flat management structure, and no chief operating officer. Nvidia has also never publicly identified a successor, leaving no obvious heir to the multitrillion-dollar company. (Huang, for his part, has apparently said he doesn’t believe in succession planning.)
That arrangement may have helped facilitate a streamlined operation—and it netted the company a lot of money. But now, in light of Huang’s potential removal, it also exposes the risks of building a company around a single individual.
Ironically, it could be the second affair that ultimately seals Huang’s fate, even though the first would seem to carry far greater consequences. His alleged relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset—an executive at Megaspeed, an Nvidia customer that was previously investigated by the U.S. Commerce Department over possible chip diversions to China—has already attracted the attention of lawmakers, many of whom question whether sensitive information could have been compromised.
“This is not just personal foibles,” a senior government official who focuses on AI told Fast Company earlier this week.
Sure enough, three House committee chairs have requested a closed-door meeting with Huang, who also now faces a proposed shareholder class action over the scandal. The alleged affair with a subordinate, meanwhile, raises a different set of concerns, and could open up new lanes of potential legal exposure for Nvidia.
The timing is particularly precarious. Nvidia shares fell roughly 8% in after-hours trading Wednesday following the reports, and uncertainty over its leadership could reverberate well beyond the company’s stock price. And it just so happens that Anthropic is reportedly preparing to go public as soon as next week, amid growing investor anxiety over the enormous sums being poured into AI.
For 33 years Nvidia’s fortunes have been inseparable from Huang’s. Now, at a moment when much of the tech industry’s fortunes are tied to Nvidia, the company may have to prove it can thrive without him.
