Nvidia’s board of directors is preparing to fire company co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang following the revelation of two of his extramarital affairs, one of which was with an alleged Chinese spy. About this reports The Wall Street Journal, citing knowledgeable sources. According to them, the board of directors was preparing to meet today to decide the future fate of the director. The resignation has not yet been officially announced.
Image sources: New York Times
A new twist in the scandal is associated with Huang’s revealed relationship with an Nvidia employee. The WSJ confirms the affair, citing its own source. Previously about him wrote The New York Times, which named the woman: this is Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, Kimberly Powell, who reports directly to Huang. The NYT cites five people who worked at the company. Nvidia did not promptly respond to a Reuters request, and the agency notedwhich has not yet been able to independently confirm the reports of both publications.
According to the NYT, Huang and Powell were filmed at a San Jose hotel in March during an Nvidia conference. Powell also did not respond to a request for comment.
Kimberly Powell
Just a few days earlier, on November 8, Huang admitted to his staff that he had committed adultery and apologized to his family. According to WSJ, that affair connected him with Alice Huang, the head of Singapore’s Megaspeed, a major Nvidia customer. American intelligence agencies believe she is working for Chinese intelligence.
Following Huang’s admission, Nvidia’s board of directors launched an independent investigation into reports that he had been targeted by foreign intelligence agencies. At the time, the directors publicly expressed confidence in the executive and his team and said they saw no reason to believe U.S. national security or company secrets had been compromised. Huang himself promised to fully cooperate with the investigation.
Amid reports of a possible resignation, Nvidia shares lost more than 8% in additional trading on November 11. Before this, the main trading session ended with an increase of 2.9%.
Huang has led Nvidia since its founding in 1993. During this time, he became not only the face of the company, but also one of the main public supporters of the development of AI. At the same time, the management of Nvidia is largely concentrated in his hands: dozens of executives report directly to him. However, Huang cannot protect himself from resignation through voting shares: he owns about 3.6% of the company’s shares, and he does not have special voting rights to ensure control over Nvidia.
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