Jensen Huang, the Nvidia co-founder who helped propel artificial intelligence into the mainstream, has been summoned to answer questions from US lawmakers in December after stepping down amid revelations of extramarital affairs, including one involving a woman suspected of links to Chinese intelligence.
The controversy has erased nearly half a trillion dollars from Nvidia’s market value, intensified concerns over national security and cast fresh uncertainty over an AI industry built around the company’s technology.
“Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive US technology,” Republican Senator Tim Scott wrote on X.
Mr Scott said he had asked Mr Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to appear before the Senate Banking Committee, which he chairs, in December.
Mr Huang, who has been married to his wife Lori for more than 40 years, acknowledged an affair on Sunday, reportedly with Alice Huang, a former senior executive at Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed. The pair are not related.
Alice Huang was a former senior executive at Megaspeed
US intelligence agencies reportedly circulated a memo this spring alleging that she was an asset of China’s Ministry of State Security. Beijing has denied the claims.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported a second affair, citing video that appeared to show Mr Huang behaving affectionately with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care.
As Nvidia’s board begins its search for a permanent successor, Colette Kress, the company’s chief financial officer, will take over as interim chief executive. Mr Huang had led the company for 33 years after co-founding it.
Nvidia’s fortunes soared after OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, setting off a worldwide race to develop artificial intelligence. The company’s processors, originally created for video-game graphics, became indispensable to training and operating AI systems.
Informal Trump adviser
Nvidia gave no explanation for Mr Huang’s departure, which also included his resignation from the board.
According to the company, Mr Huang remains Nvidia’s largest individual shareholder, owning about 3.6% of its stock.
The Taiwan-born businessman had served as a close informal adviser to US President Donald Trump on AI and spent years lobbying against restrictions on advanced AI chip sales to China on national security grounds.
Dan Ives of investment bank Yorkville Ives described the development as “a dark day for Nvidia and the US tech industry”.
Even so, he said the board had taken the necessary step: “Rip off the band-aid and take Nvidia into its next chapter without him.”
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The board appointed Harvey Jones, the former chief executive of chip design software company Synopsys, as chair. It said Nvidia’s operations and product roadmap were expected “to continue without interruption”.
Ms Kress joined Nvidia in 2013, following nearly 25 years at companies including Cisco and Microsoft.
Mr Trump, who had continued to support Mr Huang during the controversy, said former Apple chief executive Tim Cook should succeed him.
“A Legend replaces a Legend!” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social network, saying Mr Cook had turned Apple into “one of the great companies of the world at a fairly short range”.
‘Going through hell’
Singapore said yesterday that it had barred Alice Huang, a Chinese national, from re-entering the country in February after she provided investigators with inaccurate information about her position at Megaspeed. Authorities did not investigate her for espionage.
Nvidia’s board launched an inquiry on Sunday into reports that Mr Huang had been the focus of a “foreign intelligence effort”, while stating that it continued to have confidence in him.
Asked yesterday whether Mr Huang should have resigned, Mr Trump said the answer would depend on the facts.
“If the woman was a spy, yes. If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different,” Mr Trump said in an interview.
Mr Trump said he believed Mr Huang would “end up on his feet”, adding: “I spoke to him yesterday. He’s going through hell. What he feels most badly about is his wife and family.”
The allegations have unfolded against the backdrop of an intensifying US-China contest for control of AI, an industry widely regarded as the next industrial revolution.
Senior US politicians, including Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, have demanded answers about what the Trump administration knew about Mr Huang’s relationship with the woman suspected of being a Chinese spy, just days before Mr Trump is due to travel to China for a summit.
Reports have alleged that the Commerce Department, under Mr Lutnick, may not have acted on concerns that Megaspeed was helping divert restricted Nvidia technology to China.
Singapore’s home ministry said it had repeatedly requested information from the US Justice Department and FBI about a US server supplier during its investigation into Megaspeed, but had “received limited information or assistance”.
