Nvidia faces a test of its resilience after Jensen Huang’s exit

Huang’s departure followed a tumultuous week. On Nov. 8, he acknowledged being “unfaithful” to his wife of 40 years. Nvidia’s board said it was investigating whether he had been targeted by a foreign-intelligence effort. CFO Colette Kress became interim chief executive, while newly installed board chair Harvey Jones said the search for a permanent leader would consider internal and external candidates.

The revelations unsettled Huang’s carefully cultivated public image and raised questions about Nvidia’s exposure. One reported relationship was with Alice Huang, whom US intelligence officials suspected of spying for China—a sensitive issue given Jensen Huang’s years of lobbying Washington to loosen restrictions on chip sales to China. Reuters also reported an affair with another unnamed employee. A separate reported relationship involved Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare and one of his direct reports.

Huang cofounded Nvidia at a Denny’s in San Jose where he had once worked as a teenager. His defining strategic bet was that computing would shift from CPUs to GPUs, which can handle thousands of tasks simultaneously. Nvidia began developing CUDA more than 20 years ago, giving customers software and tools built around its chips. That combination helped lock in researchers and companies as GPUs became central to AI development.

The company’s market value rose from $360 billion at the start of the AI boom in late 2022 to $5 trillion last month. Since reports of Huang’s affairs emerged, it has shed roughly $500 billion; Nvidia shares fell 4.3% Thursday. The company’s largest customers, including Google, Amazon and Microsoft, are developing competing AI hardware, while AI labs such as Anthropic are pursuing strategies involving multiple chip suppliers.

Nvidia’s dependence on Huang is unusually deep. He led the company from its founding, maintained a flat structure with dozens of direct reports and became its chief public advocate, including in Washington. “Jensen’s combination of technical expertise, strategic vision and industry relationships is nearly impossible to replicate,” said Brad Gastwirth, an analyst at Circular Technology. Huang himself said in January that his feeling for Nvidia could not easily be replaced by hiring someone who was simply good at a particular job.

The stakes extend beyond investors. Nvidia’s chips underpin much of the world’s AI infrastructure, and Huang argued that selling the technology abroad would help the United States maintain its lead. Whether Nvidia can preserve its growth and influence without him now becomes a test of the company he built.