Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Resigns After Affair With Suspected Chinese Spy

Jensen Huang, the leather‑jacket‑clad co‑founder who built Nvidia into a nearly $6 trillion AI empire, resigned as CEO on November 12, 2026, stepping away from all roles — chief executive, president, and board member — after 33 years at the helm. The announcement, made just before New York markets opened on Thursday, caps a dizzying fall for the most visible figure in the artificial intelligence boom.

Nvidia named CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO and appointed longtime board member Harvey Jones as the company's first‑ever board chair. "Colette has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position," Jones said in the company statement, via CNN. The board is evaluating both internal and external candidates for a permanent successor.

The exit was forced by a cascade of revelations over a single week: Huang admitted to an extramarital affair on Sunday, the board announced a foreign‑intelligence investigation the same day, and by Wednesday night directors convened emergency talks after the New York Times reported a second affair — this time with an Nvidia vice president who reported directly to him.

The unraveling began in October 2025, when the New York Times first linked Huang to Alice Huang (no relation), a former executive at Singapore‑based data‑center firm Megaspeed International — an Nvidia cloud partner that received priority access to the company's most advanced chips. US authorities suspect Alice Huang acted on behalf of Chinese intelligence. The Justice Department has "not yet concluded" whether she was a spy, according to Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Megaspeed is accused of diverting Nvidia chips to Chinese users in defiance of US export restrictions. The Information reported Megaspeed facilitated $7.5 billion in chip sales into China. During the affair, Huang lobbied the Trump administration to ease chip‑sale restrictions to China, according to the Australian Financial Review. A report from Culper Research — a firm shorting Nvidia — claimed over 20% of Nvidia's fiscal 2026 compute revenue came from Chinese demand through schemes circumventing export controls.

The scandal deepened Wednesday night when the New York Times revealed Huang also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to the CEO. Reuters separately reported a third intimate relationship with a second, unnamed Nvidia employee.

President Donald Trump mounted an unusually personal defense of Huang. Trump called Huang on Tuesday urging him to fight for his job, according to multiple outlets. Earlier, Trump called Huang an "honorable guy" doing a "fantastic job" and suggested the only replacement that made sense was former Apple CEO Tim Cook. After the resignation, Trump posted on Truth Social: "A Legend replaces a Legend!"

But the political tide is turning against the relaxed chip‑export posture that Huang championed. House Speaker Mike Johnson said there is a "growing consensus" on limiting AI chip exports to China. Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott called on Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify next month. Senior White House officials are reportedly discussing whether Lutnick — who worked with Huang to relax China chip sales — should be pushed out.

Elon Musk weighed in too, tweeting it "would be an honor" to hire the disgraced CEO — though with Huang's estimated $150 billion fortune, the offer appeared purely symbolic.

Nvidia shares plunged as much as 14% in pre‑market trading before paring losses to close down 4.3% at $166.19 on Thursday. The broader AI ecosystem felt the shockwaves: Super Micro Computer dropped 11.3%, CoreWeave — in which Nvidia holds a nearly 13% stake — fell 6.9%. Rivals AMD and Broadcom each rose roughly 6% as investors bet on market‑share shifts.

The selloff extends a painful stretch. Nvidia shares have now lost more than 30% from their all‑time high in early October, pushing the company's market cap below $4 trillion for the first time since 2025. Huang, the fourth‑largest shareholder with a 3.61% stake, saw his personal fortune battered — though it still hovers around $150 billion.

Nvidia's $10 billion pledge tied to Anthropic's pending IPO is now in question, adding another layer of uncertainty for the AI funding ecosystem.

Colette Kress joined Nvidia in 2013 as CFO and has been the most visible executive next to Huang for investors and the public. Before Nvidia, she held senior finance roles at Cisco, Microsoft, and Texas Instruments. A University of Arizona graduate with an MBA from Southern Methodist University, Kress saw her net worth surpass $1 billion in June 2026, according to Forbes, and earned a $14 million pay package in fiscal 2026.

Kress was the key architect of Nvidia's circular financing strategy — investing in companies that are also customers, creating deeply intertwined relationships. Nvidia holds a nearly 13% stake in neocloud provider CoreWeave, and has similar arrangements with OpenAI, Nebius, and Anthropic. The strategy fueled explosive growth but has drawn scrutiny for concentrating financial risk.

Kress said in a statement Thursday that she was committed to building on "the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years," per AP News. Analyst Dan Ives called her "enormous credibility internally and externally" but said there's a "good chance Nvidia's board looks to the outside for a CEO," per AP News.

Jensen Huang founded Nvidia in 1993 and built it from a graphics‑card startup into the world's most valuable semiconductor company. He pioneered the use of GPUs for AI training, positioning Nvidia as the central supplier for the artificial intelligence revolution. At its peak, the company's market value had surged nearly sevenfold to almost $6 trillion, driven by insatiable demand for AI computing infrastructure.

Huang cultivated a rock‑star persona — mobbed by fans at events in Taiwan and South Korea, once asked to autograph a woman's chest, his black leather jacket as recognizable as any tech product. "The company was built so that I know how to run it," he told Bloomberg in 2023. That statement now hangs over the company: Huang, at 63, had no clear successor in place. There has never been an Nvidia without him.

Veteran Silicon Valley analyst Tim Bajarin warned the Australian Financial Review: "I think a full separation of Jensen from Nvidia would be a disaster. It would cause incredible ripples across the entire industry because of his expertise, knowledge and vision."

The immediate picture is one of parallel investigations. The Justice Department and FBI are probing Huang's relationship with Alice Huang and Nvidia has hired law firm Paul Weiss for its own internal inquiry. Nvidia sent a company‑wide email on November 8 titled "A Message to Our Company," and Kress has scheduled a company‑wide meeting for November 18.

Wall Street is recalibrating. Stephen Yiu, chief investment officer at Blue Whale Growth Fund — which holds Nvidia stock — told the AFR it was "not a big surprise that he ended up stepping down just because of his credibility issues going forward," though he maintains Nvidia remains a strong bet due to its supplier and customer relationships. Ted Mortonson of Baird noted: "If you look at the magnitude of Nvidia's offerings, nobody really can touch them."

The broader AI industry faces a reckoning. Huang's departure threatens the ecosystem he built by reinvesting Nvidia's cash into cloud providers, suppliers, and AI labs. Nvidia's $10 billion commitment to Anthropic's IPO is suddenly uncertain. And with bipartisan momentum building in Washington for tougher chip‑export controls, the relaxed China‑access strategy Huang championed may die with his tenure.