It’s surprising that stories of men cheating on their wives still make headlines in 2026.
It's a familiar plotline: Powerful Man gets caught red-handed and issues an apology to his wife, family and employees; Scorned Wife is thrust into the spotlight by seemingly altruistic internet vigilantes (usually seeking divine retribution for the men who’ve wronged them); months pass, and The Other Woman gets a tedious legacy media profile; even more months pass and (almost) everyone forgets.
That was the play-by-play for the infamous Coldplay “kiss cam”-gate in 2025, when then-Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was caught embracing Kristin Cabot, then chief of human resources at his data tech company, on the jumbotron during a concert in Massachusetts. One would
think such a ubiquitous extramarital affair would scare other powerful men into fidelity.
I guess not.
Jensen Huang has resigned as president and CEO of Nvidia after his two alleged extramarital affairs were exposed. His romance with a Chinese “businesswoman” whom U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was a spy for Beijing made headlines first.
In a surprisingly unsurprising development days later, Huang was reportedly upgraded to serial cheater based on a story published Nov. 11 by The New York Times that alleges he also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. The couple, whose unreported relationship would be a violation of Nvidia's code of conduct, was caught on video being "affectionate" at a hotel during a conference, according to The Times.
As for the affair with the higher global meltdown stakes, one would also think a man leading what is potentially the world's most powerful artificial intelligence company would understand he’s quite a vulnerable target for this type of exploitation. Clearly, the only fathomable possibility was that she was after him for his dashing good looks. The male ego knows no bounds.
From the Trump administration to Nvidia's board
Alice Huang, an unrelated executive at a data center company in Singapore called Megaspeed, was recruited to collect intelligence on the Nvidia executive to push for its most advanced AI chips to be made available to China, according to a memo that circulated among top policymakers in President Donald Trump’s administration last spring.
Upholding bro-code, Trump denied knowledge of the spying allegations when he invited the infidelious Huang to accompany him on a trip to China in May.
Nvidia’s board of directors initiated an independent investigation of the matter but predictably maintains they have “no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised.” The company now faces lawsuits from shareholders and an FBI investigation.
Beijing dismissed the espionage allegations, naturally.
It’s yet another case of how the global economy – Nvidia is worth $4 trillion – is terrifyingly dependent on egotistical, emotionally volatile men. Huang's dalliances might have been set more in his personal life, but logic-defying buffoonery by men is seen as a foregone conclusion in every Silicon Valley setting.
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has a laundry list of erratic behavior, from ignoring claims of sexual harassment and racism at Tesla, to baselessly calling a cave diver a “pedo guy” and hiring a private investigator to dig up dirt on him, to alleged explosive firing sprees for anyone who disagreed with him. Not to mention his chainsaw-wielding DOGE antics. This man used to be in charge of "government efficiency.”
Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of similarly narcissistic and erratic behavior as CEO of Meta, formerly Facebook.
There’s an inevitable point that powerful men reach where their hubris clouds their better judgment. Once you’ve attained all the money and influence in the world, there’s no one left to answer to. Why not succumb to your worst habits? It’s not like you’ll be reprimanded for it.
It's a recipe for disaster for revenge-of-the-nerds tech billionaire losers. Huang certainly didn’t think he was getting honeypotted by a Chinese spy. Why would a woman not want to be with a billionaire CEO in earnest? Now, the fate of the entire AI industry is in limbo thanks to one guy's libido. Typical.
More than a standard celebrity cheating scandal
Even on its face, this is more than a standard celebrity cheating scandal.
Trump’s opaqueness about his knowledge of the whole ordeal is weird. He’s either woefully uninformed about the intelligence by his own officials, or he’s intentionally obfuscating the truth to hide the real implications of this whole ordeal. I’m leaning toward the latter.
Huang (cheater) spent the past two years building a close relationship with the president and has significantly influenced AI policy. In 2025, he persuaded Trump to roll back restrictions on chip sales to China. This year, he helped derail a plan to create regulations to ensure the safety of AI systems, The Times reported.
He's also been funding Trump’s whims. Nvidia gave $25 million to Trump’s White House ballroom (definitely not a money laundering scheme) and $1 million to his 2025 inaugural fund. Initially, Nvidia wanted to keep its ballroom contribution anonymous, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Alice Huang's Megaspeed sells access to computing resources hosted in data centers to Asia-based companies that need large amounts of computing capacity, usually for AI projects. A Commerce Department investigation into the company potentially smuggling Nvidia’s AI chips into China has come to a suspicious halt.
It’s clear that Trump is trying to downplay what could be a major national security risk ahead of his highly anticipated presence at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit in China, where Trump “thinks” he’ll meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Why is he not certain of the attendees? Did they not respond to the Partiful?)
The trio will discuss ending war and denuclearization, a timely topic as Taiwan contends with the growing risk of an invasion from China.
The Nvidia cheating scandal is more than just that, and we can’t let our cultural obsession with steamy affairs cloud our vision of the potential uncomfortable truths about the nefarious intentions behind global tech corporations and the men who run them. We know how artificial intelligence is used in warfare. It’s not improbable that this affair gave Megaspeed access to the same technology of destruction.
Kofi Mframa is an entertainment and culture columnist at USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Huang's Nvidia honeypot scandal proves the hubris of male CEOs | Opinion
