Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive of Nvidia on Thursday, the company said, following revelations of two extramarital affairs, one involving a woman accused of spying for China. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO. Huang co-founded Nvidia and led the company for 33 years.
Huang issued a statement on Nov. 8 admitting to an affair without naming the woman. He resigned four days later. Media reports have since linked him to three women. Huang has not confirmed the allegations involving the second and third women, and none of the claims has been proven.
The admitted affair was reportedly with Alice Huang, a senior executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed. The two are not related. Her Chinese name is reported to be Huang Le. US intelligence officials reportedly suspect she was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security to gain access to Huang. China has denied the allegations, and she has not been charged with any crime.
Reports say Alice Huang was born in 1977 in China’s Hunan province, studied nursing, and later worked with Hunan TV and the state broadcaster CCTV, though never as a regular employee. She was reportedly married in Hunan before meeting Huang, and later met stock market analyst and investor Kang Wei, who is said to have introduced her to the Nvidia chief.
Kang reportedly met Huang through business dealings in the 2010s, when he was involved in acquiring Chinese video game companies, a significant market for Nvidia at the time. This suggests she may have come into Huang’s circle well before 2024, though some accounts say they met that year in connection with an AI chip purchase.
By 2023, she had reportedly risen to a senior position at Megaspeed, which was involved in large-scale procurement of Nvidia chips for data centers in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Megaspeed has been accused of helping move banned Nvidia chips to China. The company denies the accusation, and investigations have been opened in the US and Singapore.
The second woman named in reports is Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reports directly to Huang. Five current and former employees allege the two had an extramarital relationship that was known to some staff. Both are married to other people. Powell, reported to be 48, joined Nvidia in 2008 and has led its healthcare business since October 2017. Her early work focused on promoting Nvidia’s AI chips in medical imaging.
According to the allegations, the two were seen very close together at a San Jose hotel during the company’s developer conference in March. Two people said the encounter was captured on video, though the report that published the claim said it had not seen the footage. Huang did not substantively address the allegations when contacted, Nvidia declined to comment, and Powell did not immediately respond.
A third woman, reportedly also an Nvidia employee, has been described as having a close relationship with Huang, according to two people familiar with the matter. Her identity has not been made public, and attempts to reach her were unsuccessful. Little else is known.
Nvidia’s stock tumbled Thursday after the resignation was announced. The company has confirmed an internal probe into Huang.