Scandal-Embroiled NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Has Resigned
He's accused of affairs with a Chinese spy and a worker at his company.
NVIDIA is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, designing and manufacturing GPUs, CPUs, data processing centers, and much more. The company's products are used for everything from gaming to super intelligence, which makes NVIDIA one of the most important players on the world stage right now. At the moment, however, NVIDIA is making the front page for all the wrong reasons, as its CEO Jensen Huang is embroiled in a major infidelity scandal.
According to reports, Huang is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for an affair with Alice Huang (no relation), whom the government believes is an agent of China. With the SI race as heated as it is, the White House's interest in Huang's dealings are quite understandable. It seems that Huang's extramarital activities involved at least one other woman, with five of his employees alleging to the New York Times that the CEO was having an affair with NVIDIA's Vice President of Healthcare, Kimberly Powell. Powell, who is also married, is allegedly on video with Huang being affectionate towards one another during a conference last spring.
Colette Kress, the current NVIDIA CFO, is being promoted to CEO for the foreseeable future, effective immediately. NVIDIA made the announcement this morning via its website:
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) Board of Directors announced today that Jensen Huang has resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board, effective immediately.
Colette Kress, current Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NVIDIA, has agreed to serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer. Kress will continue to serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer while serving as Interim Chief Executive Officer until a permanent successor has been named. The Board is initiating a search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer and will consider internal and external candidates.
Kress has worked at NVIDAI since 2017 and has decades of experience in the industry. Nvidia states that it "[expects] the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption." NVIDIA is a pretty integral partner within the video game sphere, working with companies like Nintendo (you might recall he even recorded a special video with the company, which you can see above), Capcom, EA, and many others.
It's unlikely that Huang's resignation will have any immediate impact on the video game industry, but his future apart from NVIDIA does bring up some interesting possibilities, as he could very well move on to being a direct competitor of his old company (Elon Musk has already expressed interest via X in working with Huang at SpaceX). Of course, this is assuming Huang will be available for work: according to investigators, it's believed that Alice Huang "was able to gain access to 240,000 chips that were banned from being exported to China." This could lead to some serious consequences for the former CEO depending on how the DOJ's investigation shakes out.
We'll continue to update as we learn more.
Source: CBS News + The New York Times + NVIDIA
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