Jensen Huang Drops AI Events as Nvidia Opens Investigation

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has dropped out of two AI events this week after disclosing an affair and triggering a board investigation. Huang was set to be interviewed by an Anthropic executive at a private CEO forum on Monday evening, but is no longer expected to attend, Business Insider reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

He has also been pulled from the ElevenLabs Summit in New York this week, where he was scheduled for a fireside chat on "the future of AI." An ElevenLabs spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that Huang is no longer speaking.

The withdrawal follows a Sunday memo in which Huang told staff he had been "unfaithful" to his wife and apologized to his family. "I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence," Huang wrote, according to Business Insider.

The board responded the same day. "The NVIDIA Board is initiating an independent investigation in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort," the company said in a statement. A committee of independent directors, assisted by outside independent counsel, will oversee the probe.

The investigation stems from an October report by The New York Times that Huang had a close relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore‑based cloud company Megaspeed, and that U.S. authorities concluded she was a Chinese intelligence asset. Megaspeed has been accused of helping restricted Chinese companies acquire Nvidia AI chips, CNBC reported.

Nvidia's board said it has "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised," but added that its inquiry will "examine all available information," per CNBC. Huang said in his memo that he supports the investigation and will cooperate fully.

Nvidia's stock dropped about 5% after Huang's admission, the New York Post reported, and analysts are pricing in the risk that the executive, who has led the company for more than three decades, could step aside. "There is clearly risk that Jensen could be removed as CEO depending on the Board investigation and this will add risk to the stock as he is so important to the Nvidia story and strategy globally," Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives & Co. told.³ "This is a black eye moment for Jensen and will spark multiple congressional inquiries at a minimum and will create an overhang on the stock."

Huang has no clear public successor, with roughly 60 direct reports and a company worth more than $4 trillion, the New York Post reported. President Trump called Huang an "honorable guy," investor Bill Ackman urged the public to support Huang and his family, and Elon Musk replied "I agree" to a Sequoia partner's post calling Huang "irreplaceable for America's AI leadership," per the Post.

Nvidia's GPUs are the foundation for nearly every AI model that builders train, fine‑tune, and run, so any leadership instability or export‑control tightening lands directly on chip pricing and availability. The U.S. already restricts exports of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips to China, CNBC reported, and the probe is expected to deepen scrutiny of those sales.

For now, the risk is governance, not supply: a company spokesperson told CNBC that Huang "was committed to continuing as CEO of Nvidia without interruption." No timeline for the board's investigation has been announced.