Jensen Huang is stepping down
Following reports of a second affair, the CEO of Nvidia is stepping down. CFO Colette Kress will take over the position on an interim basis.
In a press release, Nvidia has announced the immediate resignation of CEO Jensen Huang. This follows a report by the «New York Times» on Wednesday regarding a second affair involving the 63-year-old. The board of directors subsequently convened an overnight meeting, where it apparently concluded that Huang was no longer tenable.
For the time being, CFO Colette Kress will take over the leadership of the company in addition to her role as Chief Financial Officer. The 59-year-old has worked for Nvidia for 13 years and was a driving force behind the shift of the core business from gaming GPUs to AI chips. Kress previously worked at Cisco and Microsoft. The AI boom made her wealthy thanks to her Nvidia shares: her net worth was most recently estimated at 772 million US dollars.
Source: Nvidia
Relationship with direct subordinate manager
According to the report by the «New York Times», Jensen Huang had an extramarital affair with Kimberly Powell. The 48-year-old leads Nvidia's healthcare business as Vice President and reported directly to Huang. Both are married to other people.
Huang and Powell were allegedly filmed exchanging affection at a hotel in San Jose during Nvidia's GTC developer conference in March. According to three informed individuals, Huang's security personnel took the person filming aside. They were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. When asked by the «New York Times» over the phone, Huang only said: «I don't think you should be speaking to me directly.» He then hung up. Powell did not comment.
Source: Nvidia
The relationship is sensitive because Powell was directly dependent on Huang. Nvidia's code of conduct explicitly lists personal relationships as a potential conflict of interest. It applies to all employees and the board of directors. Violations can lead to termination. In a similar case, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich resigned in 2018 due to a relationship with an employee. McDonald's fired CEO Steve Easterbrook in 2019 for the same reason.
Second scandal following affair with alleged spy
A few days ago, Jensen Huang had already admitted to another affair with a Chinese businesswoman: Alice Huang (no relation) was a top manager at Megaspeed in Singapore. The company has purchased more than 4.8 billion US dollars worth of Nvidia chips since 2024. The US intelligence service claims she passed information to Beijing. According to a secret memo, she was recruited by the Chinese Ministry of State Security. China denies the allegations.
The Nvidia CEO had initially described the contacts as «completely normal». Then the «Financial Times» reported that the relationship had been romantic. On Sunday, Jensen Huang finally apologized in a message to his staff.
On the same day, the board of directors announced an investigation by an independent committee and a law firm. There is «no reason to believe» that national security or trade secrets were compromised. US President Donald Trump defended Huang as «honorable». According to media reports, he had known about his affair with the alleged spy for months – but did nothing.
Swiss national on the list of potential successors
Nvidia controls about 90 percent of the market for AI chips. Huang co-founded the company in 1993 and is the largest individual shareholder with 3.56 percent. He managed the company centrally with about 60 direct reports. The Nvidia stock lost 13 percent in pre-market trading after the resignation was announced. Since its peak in early October, it has lost over a third of its value. This corresponds to over 1.5 trillion US dollars.
Jensen Huang's removal is an economic risk because the structure was tailored to him as the most important decision-maker. On November 17, Nvidia will present its quarterly figures. These will now be presented by Colette Kress. «Nvidia's strength has always been its employees, and together with our leadership team, I am determined to build on the extraordinary foundation that Jensen has created over the last 33 years», the interim CEO is quoted as saying.
There is no clear, definitive successor yet. The board of directors states that it is examining both internal and external candidates. In addition to CFO Colette Kress, long-time top manager Jay Purials has been mentioned as an option in the media in recent days. Apple's hardware chief Johny Srouji and AMD CEO Lisa Su are mentioned as external possibilities. Huang's children, Madison and Spencer, also work at Nvidia.
Source: Nazarbayev University
A candidate from Switzerland is also son-in-law Nico Caprez. He has been married to Madison Huang since September and has had a steep career at Nvidia since joining in 2024. He currently holds the position of Vice President for Global AI Infrastructure Growth. Caprez is not entirely unknown to the Swiss public. He was in a relationship with ski racer Wendy Holdener for over nine years and was previously in the national alpine ski squad himself. However, a knee injury ended his athletic career in 2013.
My fingerprint often changes so drastically that my MacBook doesn't recognise it anymore. The reason? If I'm not clinging to a monitor or camera, I'm probably clinging to a rockface by the tips of my fingers.
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