Nvidia’s board of directors announced the departure of Jensen Huang, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of the group, following reports of two extramarital affairs. The board accepted his resignation as CEO, chairman, and director, effective immediately, and Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has been appointed interim CEO.
Colette Kress has worked at Nvidia since 2013, after stints at Cisco and Microsoft. The group is also changing its governance structure: Harvey C. Jones, former CEO of Synopsys, becomes the first chairman of the board in the company’s history. The press release contains no statement from Jensen Huang. Colette Kress, quoted, states that ‘NVIDIA’s strength has always been its teams’ and that she is committed, with the leadership team, to ‘building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen has built over the past 33 years.’
The board indicated it is launching a search for a permanent CEO, considering both internal and external candidates. According to subsequent reports, several names are circulating, including Colette Kress, Johny Srouji, head of hardware at Apple, Ian Buck, vice president at Nvidia, Lisa Su, CEO of AMD and cousin of Jensen Huang, and Rene Haas, CEO of Arm.
Considerable Influence
Jensen Huang led the company since its founding in 1993. Nvidia has become the leading supplier of chips powering the development and deployment of artificial intelligence in the United States, with demand regularly exceeding supply. Its investment portfolio, valued at approximately $99 billion and spanning cutting-edge labs as well as specialized cloud providers, also gives it significant weight in the sector. Jensen Huang also maintained a close relationship with President Donald Trump.
A Sensitive Affair
The situation became tense during the previous week, following reports that Jensen Huang had a romantic relationship with Alice Huang, no relation, the head of Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud provider and a major Nvidia client. According to The New York Times, this executive also passed information to China’s Ministry of State Security, showing interest in advanced American AI chips. The newspaper also reports that Jensen Huang acknowledged, in a memo to Nvidia employees, having been ‘unfaithful’ to his wife, and that he apologized to his family and shareholders.
On Wednesday, new reports emerged of a second extramarital affair, this time with an executive directly under his supervision. The New York Times, citing five people who worked at Nvidia, identifies this person as Kimberly Powell, vice president of healthcare. The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that the board of directors was to meet as early as Wednesday evening to decide Jensen Huang’s future at the company.
