Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned Thursday after his extramarital affair with a Chinese businesswoman who reportedly was also acting as a spy for Beijing raised U.S. national security concerns. The company named Colette Kress as interim CEO. She had been Nvidia’s executive vice president and chief financial officer.
Nvidia’s board had gathered to discuss Huang’s future after revelations that he was having an affair with a former Megaspeed executive
suspected of being a Chinese government agent. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Huang also had an affair with an Nvidia executive who reported to him. The Associated Press could not independently confirm those reports.
The Times reported that the woman with whom Huang had an affair was Alice Huang, who also goes by the name Huang Le and was a top executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company that touts its partnership with Nvidia. The two are not related.
Shares of Nvidia, one of the largest companies in the world, fell sharply at the opening bell Thursday.
Here's the latest:
Dan Ives, a technology analyst with the investment firm Yorkville Ives, said removing Jensen was a necessary step by the board of chipmaker Nvidia.
“The old Jensen, the black leather jacket, the Godfather of AI, the rock star viewed as the face of the AI boom, is over and in the past,” he wrote in a note to investors. “His value to the company pre- and post-this week is dramatically different, and the board did what we said it needed to do, which is rip off the band-aid and take Nvidia into its next chapter without him after this dark moment for Jensen and Nvidia.”
He still recommends investors buy Nvidia stock. He said Nvidia is still two to three years ahead of its nearest competitor and the “demand trajectory” for its chips isn’t changing because Jensen is gone.
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Singapore authorities said Thursday that they banned Alice Huang from returning to the country after opening an investigation into Megaspeed over “suspected false declarations” about server purchases.
Investigators looked into whether servers were bought and exported through Singapore to neighboring Malaysia, and then routed to a final destination, contrary to what was declared in Singapore.
Police in the Southeast Asian city-state investigated Alice Huang for “suspected involvement in the possible offences,” but not for espionage, according to a detailed statement issued by the Home Affairs Department.
They seized her passport as part of investigation but returned it in February after concluding that “there was insufficient evidence” that she committed any offences.
But authorities gave her “a stern warning” and barred her from reentering the country because they suspected she “provided information which she knew to be inaccurate” to downplay her role at Megaspeed.
While the statement did not mention China or Nvidia, it said Singapore “does not condone companies using their association with Singapore to circumvent or violate other countries’ export controls through fraud or dishonest practices.”
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A plunge for Nvidia’s stock is pulling the U.S. market lower, threatening to upend the AI boom that has carried Wall Street to record after record in recent years.
The S&P 500 fell 0.7% Thursday. The weakness in AI stocks sent the Nasdaq composite down 1.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 127 points. Nvidia tumbled 14% after Jensen Huang, its co-founder and face of the brand, resigned as CEO. Other stocks in the AI industry also fell, though some of Nvidia’s rival chip companies rose. Oil prices swung after President Donald Trump said he’s no longer interested in a deal with Iran.
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Megaspeed, the Singapore-headquartered data center company at the center of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s scandal, pledged Thursday to cooperate with investigations into potential risks to U.S. national security.
“Megaspeed is committed to working constructively and transparently with the U.S. government,” said the statement signed by its chairman and CEO, Tan Yong Pong, who also goes by James Tan.
Nvidia has said it had “no reason to believe” that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, but that its inquiry would examine all available information.
Megaspeed faced claims last year that it was illicitly shipping advanced Nvidia computer chips into China, but in December said there was “no evidence” of such exports. Singapore has also said it is investigating such allegations.
China has denied that it engaged in an attempt to ensnare Huang, who heads one of the world’s most valuable companies. Nvidia has become a leader in making chips that power AI and Huang has lobbied Washington to loosen limits on sales of Nvidia chips to China. In January, he won Trump’s approval to sell its H200 chips to China.
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The explosive tale of Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang — involving marital betrayal, international intrigue and accusations of espionage — has rocked the tech and political worlds. Yet basic questions about her life — and how she grew close to one of the world’s most powerful technology executives — remain unanswered.
Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, drew wide attention last month, when The New York Times reported she had formed a close relationship with Nvidia’s chief and passed information to Beijing. U.S. officials, the Times reported, had concluded Alice Huang was a Chinese spy who had been recruited to influence California-based Nvidia to make its most advanced chips more available in China, a discovery the paper said set off alarms as high as the White House.
It remains unclear when the apparent affair started and when it might have ended. The Associated Press was unable to reach Alice Huang for comment.
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Nvidia’s interim CEO is Colette Kress, who first joined the chipmaker back in 2013. She’s most recently served as the company’s executive vice president and CFO.
Prior to joining Nvidia, Kress worked at Cisco, Microsoft and Texas Instruments in a variety of roles, according to her executive bio on the company’s website.
In a statement Thursday, Kress said that Nvidia’s “strength has always come from its people” and that she was “committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years.”
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The company’s stock has been under pressure for weeks, both because of reporting about the affair and questions about a potential bubble in the AI sector.
Shares slid more than 7% to $160.85 before the opening bell, 34% below the company’s all-time high reached just over a month ago.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Huang had a second affair with an Nvidia executive who reports to him, and analysts said that may force the board to oust him.
