The New York Times says Huang had a relationship with one of his own executives. Minutes later the WSJ said the board is preparing to remove him
The NYT reports Huang had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's VP of health care and one of his direct reports. It's unconfirmed and Nvidia won't comment.
The WSJ says the board is preparing to oust him and was due to meet Wednesday US time. Nothing has been announced.
Nvidia shares fell about 8% after hours to around US$160, roughly a third below October's record.
There's no named successor. An interim CEO is the likeliest short-term outcome if he goes.
Earnings are on 17 November.
Four days ago Jensen Huang admitted an affair with a Megaspeed executive US officials reportedly believe was a Chinese intelligence asset, and Nvidia’s board said it still backed him. Last night that support appears to have run out. Minutes after The New York Times reported a second relationship, this time with one of Nvidia’s own executives, The Wall Street Journal reported the board is preparing to oust him.
As we publish, Nvidia hasn’t announced anything. Huang is still CEO. But the board was reportedly due to meet on Wednesday US time to decide his future, and the share price is already voting.
The Times reported that Huang had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, who has been at the company since 2008 and reports directly to him. The paper cited five people who have worked at Nvidia and said the two were seen being affectionate at a San Jose hotel during a company conference in March. Both are married to other people.
None of this has been confirmed. Reuters said it couldn’t verify the report. Nvidia declined to comment and Powell didn’t respond to requests from several outlets. When the Times called Huang directly, he reportedly said “I don’t think you should be talking to me directly” and hung up.
Why it matters more than the first affair: Powell is a senior executive who reports to him. Nvidia’s own code of conduct lists personal relationships as a conflict of interest, and boards have fired CEOs for exactly this. Intel pushed out Brian Krzanich in 2018 and McDonald’s fired Steve Easterbrook in 2019 over relationships with staff.
Not yet, officially. Here’s where it stands:
Some sites are already running headlines saying he’s been fired. We haven’t found a single solid source for that. Until Nvidia says so, he hasn’t.
Pressure is coming from outside too. House Republicans have demanded a closed-door briefing on his dealings with the Megaspeed executive, and President Trump called Huang “an honorable guy” while saying the FBI is looking into the matter.
Nvidia actually rose 2.9% on Wednesday to close at US$173.73. Then the two reports landed after the bell and the shares fell about 8% in after-hours trading, to around US$160. That’s below their 52-week low and roughly a third under the record set on 6 October. Reuters puts the damage at about US$600 billion in market value this week alone. As we wrote on Monday, the market was already charging a Huang discount. Now it’s pricing in no Huang at all.
Nobody obvious, and that’s the problem. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and is the only CEO it has ever had. There’s no named successor and no public succession plan. Analysts have thrown around outside names like AMD’s Lisa Su (who is a distant relative of Huang’s) and Arm’s Rene Haas, but that’s speculation. An interim CEO from inside while the board searches is the likeliest short-term outcome if he goes. Huang also owns about 3.6% of the company, so he doesn’t disappear from the picture even if he loses the job.
GeForce is a small slice of Nvidia’s money now, but it’s still the GPU most of us are running. Huang is the guy who kept GeForce alive while data centres took over the business, and a new boss answering to AI shareholders has even less reason to care about gaming. The RTX 50 series supply mess and the future of GeForce were already open questions. Earnings land on 17 November, and whoever is running the company then will have to answer them.
This stopped being about one man’s private life the moment the second name was a direct report. If the Times has it right, a relationship with a subordinate while you run a multi-trillion-dollar company isn’t a personal matter, it’s a governance failure, and every other company in America fires people for it. Nvidia’s board backed Huang on Sunday without knowing, or without saying, what else was coming. Either they didn’t ask or they didn’t care, and both are bad. Huang built something remarkable. That doesn’t buy a pass on the rules every Nvidia employee has to follow. Whatever the board decides, one thing is already settled: bro is rekt.
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