Reports say Nvidia’s board is preparing to remove Jensen Huang as chief executive, a move that would end the three-decade run of the founder who turned the chipmaker into the engine of the artificial intelligence boom. The board was reported to be meeting late on Wednesday to decide his future, days after Huang acknowledged in a letter to staff that he had been unfaithful to his wife. Shares fell about 7% in premarket trading on Thursday, extending a slide that has already wiped hundreds of billions of dollars from the company’s value.
What has been reported
The Wall Street Journal reported that the board is preparing to oust Huang after two extramarital affairs, citing people familiar with the matter. One involved Alice Huang, an executive at the Singapore data company Megaspeed, whom United States intelligence officials believe is working for China’s intelligence services.
The other, reported by The New York Times, involved Kimberly Powell, a senior Nvidia executive who runs its healthcare business. Powell did not respond to requests for comment, according to the Journal. The Times reported the second affair on Wednesday, the same day the board was due to meet.
Huang acknowledged on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologised for violating his family’s and his employees’ trust. The board said the same day it had no reason to believe company secrets or national security were compromised.
The board also expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team, and President Trump stood by Huang earlier in the week, calling him an “amazing guy” and an “honorable man”. A committee of independent directors, helped by outside counsel, is overseeing the inquiry into the affair.
The market has not waited for the board’s decision. Nvidia shares fell about 8% in after-hours trading on Wednesday and were down about 7% before Thursday’s open, extending the slide from last week’s chip-led rout. Reuters reported that the week’s selloff has cost the company about $600 billion in market value.
Our Read
The facts are narrow and the consequences are wide. The board is weighing a personal conduct question, but the market is pricing a leadership question: Huang has no anointed successor and has said he does not believe in succession planning.
Huang personally drove the deals that made Nvidia the AI boom’s biggest backer. He is 63, a co-founder, and the company’s largest shareholder, with about 3.6% of the stock. His departure would leave a company that has never planned for life without him.
That is why the story moved from the gossip pages to the market pages so fast. Investors are not only asking who runs Nvidia, but whether the company keeps bankrolling the AI buildout at the same pace without him in charge.
Nvidia has been writing cheques across the AI industry, from Korean startups to data-centre operators, and those commitments were Huang’s personal project as much as the company’s strategy. A new chief executive might spend that money very differently, and the industry knows it.
Why It Matters
Nvidia sits at the centre of the AI trade, and its chips, its spending and its chief executive’s word have all been treated as one story. A sudden change at the top would test every part of that: the company’s strategy, its relationships in Washington and Beijing, and the confidence of customers and suppliers.
The board’s own statement on Sunday still stands, and no formal announcement had been made by Thursday morning. An Nvidia spokesman said Huang was committed to continuing to lead the company “without interruption”. But the board met late on Wednesday, and the market is reading the silence as a decision still to come.
If the directors remove him, they must name a successor for a company that has never planned for one; if they keep him, they must explain how the inquiry ends. Either way, the uncertainty itself is now the story today.
Background
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and built it from a graphics-chip maker into one of the world’s most valuable companies, riding the AI boom he helped create. The board’s inquiry is the first real test of a company built entirely around one man.
The first reports of Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang emerged in October 2025. Megaspeed has been under investigation since late 2024 over suspected diversion of Nvidia chips to China, and Beijing has denied the spying claims. The board opened its investigation into the reports days before the ouster story broke.
Source: The Wall Street Journal’s report and Reuters’ report.
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