Nvidia Board Weighs Dumping Huang as Chip Empire Wobbles

Nvidia's board is meeting to decide whether to oust CEO Jensen Huang, CNBC confirmed late Wednesday, and within hours the market had already passed its own verdict. Shares fell more than 9% in post-market trading after the Wall Street Journal reported the board was preparing to push out the man who co-founded the company in 1993, 33 years ago. The stock is on pace for its sixth straight weekly slide. Somewhere, a pension fund manager is sweating through a shirt.

Who Has the Power

The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing five people who worked at Nvidia, that Huang, 63, also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company's vice president of health care, who reports directly to him. Two people who worked at the company told the Times that Huang and Powell were captured on video being affectionate at a San Jose hotel during a company conference in March. The Times said it hadn't seen the video. Nvidia, Huang and Powell haven't confirmed the report.

This is a boss and a direct report. Like many companies, Nvidia has rules discouraging exactly that arrangement, the Times notes. A former employee who asked not to be named told CNBC the rumors had circulated for years, in part because Powell lacks a background in health or science. She has led the health care group since 2017. Reached by a Times reporter, Huang reportedly said, "I don't think you should be talking to me directly," and hung up.

Huang has about 60 direct reports, he has said, and TechCrunch says the company has no obvious successor or succession plan. Most of his shares are co-owned with his wife, Lori Huang, and held in trusts holding about 800 million shares. Huang holds about 70 million on his own. One man, one company, one fragile chain of command.

The Chips and the Spy Story

The earlier affair involves Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, who is of no relation to Jensen Huang. U.S. officials believe she is a Chinese spy; the Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials believe she works for China's Ministry of State Security. Megaspeed reportedly purchased $4.8 billion in Nvidia chips over about two years. The U.S. and Singapore confirmed investigations of Megaspeed in October 2025, about one year ago, over suspicions it helped Chinese companies evade export restrictions. Megaspeed denies the allegation. The Justice Department has since taken over the federal investigation.

The Information reported that Alice Huang and her family built a network of companies in China and Singapore to acquire Nvidia chips, including Shanghai Century Litong, founded in 2023, which became an Nvidia-preferred cloud partner and facilitated $7.5 billion in chip purchases, including banned chips. Export controls, it seems, were a suggestion with a very expensive loophole.

Bloomberg reported that Nvidia's head lawyer, Tim Teter, contacted Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler in 2025 asking whether the Trump administration played a role in detaining Alice Huang. The Times reported that a secret memo, whose drafting Secretary of State Marco Rubio supervised, circulated in spring 2026 warning that Alice Huang was a spy, and that Trump was briefed in late 2025 but did not act.

What They're Calling "Order"

The apology came Sunday. "I owe my family and all of you an apology. I was unfaithful to my wife," Huang wrote in a letter to employees, also published as a press release. He tied his infidelity to "the national security concerns raised in news reports," and wrote: "I love our country and our company. I am proud and grateful to be an American." The board hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz for an independent investigation, and the company said it had no reason to believe that "either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised."

Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo had earlier said: "Jensen's interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected. Meetings with customers are part of a CEO's job." China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the spy claim "nothing but a smear campaign against China."

Then came the politicians. President Trump said Sunday, "I have not spoken to him about it. I just know he's a fine person, but you never know what's going on." Asked if Huang should remain chief, he said, "I think so. Oh yeah, sure." Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer called Tuesday for Huang to resign: "The potential for extortion is so tremendous that something as sensitive as Nvidia chips, I just think he's got to go." Three House chairmen demanded a closed-door briefing, and Rep. Brian Mast said he was prepared to subpoena Huang if he did not respond by the end of Wednesday.

So the machinery grinds on: a board hiring white-shoe lawyers to investigate its own boss, congressional committees posturing, a president vouching for an ally. Nobody in that room answers to the people who live downstream of what these chips will be used for. They answer to each other, and to the share price.