黄仁勋因涉中国间谍及婚外情辞职，CFO暂代CEO

Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of Nvidia and left its board.

CFO Colette Kress will be interim CEO. Here is a quick profile of Kress. Here is a look at some of the potential long term successors.

There were a lot of efforts to bury the fact that Jensen Huang had an affair with a Chinese spy, and then even to bury his second affair as well, and to get everyone to ignore the obvious implications of this. Then the second affair was revealed with executive Kimberly Powell, who directly reports to him. Even then, many doubled down on defending Jensen Huang as CEO of Nvidia.

The Nvidia board disagreed, and was preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang prior to his resignation.

This creates a tricky situation for Nvidia, given that Jensen Huang had over 50 direct reports and did not believe in succession planning, and also for the White House.

It also creates a tricky situation for many in Silicon Valley, who have invested heavily in their relationships with Jensen Huang and in the idea that founders are as Gods.

This post covers all related events since my initial post.

If you haven’t seen it, this short AI video is obligatory, as is this one.

The Daily Show has coverage of stage one. They weren’t being all that subtle, huh?

Odd Lots had an essay on the Megaspeed scandal. As Tracy Alloway says, one simple takeaway is that Nvidia could have easily sold all these chips to Americans.

Matt Levine has additional coverage. Derek Thompson summarizes this ‘insane scandal.’

And of course, right on schedule:

Nate Silver: I think, because it happened on top of the midterms and the midterms were a huge story, people are still underindexing on how seismic the NVIDIA story is. Especially when you read the deeper reporting on it.

Rob Miles: I felt a little bit bad about attacking Jensen Huang in the past, but now I feel a lot better about it.

I was probably still wrong, since I went from “This guy’s decisions and arguments seem surprisingly bad” to “Maybe he’s not as smart as people think he is” instead of “Maybe he’s compromised”. Chalk one up for Conflict Theory I guess…

Table of Contents

• A Second Ant in the Kitchen.
• There Was Going to Be an Investigation.
• Jensen Huang Had to Resign.
• Seven Billion in Sales to China Enabled by Jensen’s Ties to Alice Huang.
• Jensen Huang Attempted to Make Himself Unfireable.
• A Remarkable Lack of Contagion.
• Even Now There Are Those Defending Jensen Huang.
• Send in the Sockpuppets.
• Okay Maybe We Came on a Little Strong.
• Past Scandal at the Commerce Department.
• New Scandal at the Commerce Department.
• Chip Export Controls Gain Momentum.
• Reminder That Compute Is Very Important.
• If You Can’t Even Have an Affair With a Chinese Spy.
• What Happens Next?

A Second Ant in the Kitchen

Nathan Calvin: Hey maybe NVIDIA’s PR person was telling the truth when he said that Jensen’s relationship with Alice Huang was neither unusual or unexpected.

Bloomberg TV: In the interview, Huang said that his interactions with her were typical of those with Chinese customers and executives.

To what one would hope would be the surprise of absolutely no one, Jensen Huang turned out to be having at least two affairs.

In any sane world an undisclosed affair with a direct report is a lot less terrible than an affair with a Chinese spy. It is still quite bad. In America, this is still a sufficiently large breach of conduct that CEOs often get fired for it on its own.

The other question is, now that the second ant has been spotted, how many more ants were there in this kitchen? It would be surprising if the count stopped at two.

Ryan Mac, Tripp Mickle and Georgia Gee (NYTimes): Jensen Huang, the leader of Nvidia who is under investigation for an affair with a woman who U.S. intelligence determined is a Chinese spy, also had an extramarital relationship with [Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care], an executive who reports to him, according to five people who worked at the company.

… Mr. Huang, 63, and Ms. Powell, 48, were captured on video being affectionate at a San Jose, Calif., hotel during a Nvidia conference in March, according to two of the people who worked at the company. The New York Times has not seen the video.

Both Mr. Huang and Ms. Powell are married to other people.

… Mr. Huang’s relationship with Ms. Powell has been discussed inside the company, the five people said.

… Mr. Huang is among a long list of chief executives of American companies who have had relationships with subordinates. Brian Krzanich resigned in 2018 from Intel, the chip maker, after acknowledging a “past consensual relationship” with an employee.

Yes, according to Reuters, there was a third ant in the kitchen, another employee.

There is not yet any word of what Ms. Huang will choose to do about all this.

There Was Going to Be an Investigation

The Nvidia board had hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct its ‘independent investigation.’

Once the second affair was revealed, they were not going to wait for the investigation or try to bury the situation. Jensen was on his way out, and has now resigned. We still eagerly await the results of the investigation, for other reasons.

Jensen Huang Had to Resign

This is 2026, so only after the second affair could we be sure that was how this would turn out, and even then there were people trying hard to defend him. It really, really should not have required the second affair.

These quotes come from before the revelation of affair number two (of N):

Andrew Curran: North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer is calling for Jensen Huang to step down, and says that his actions ‘pose a clear national security risk.’

Gabby Miller (Politico): “The potential for extortion is so tremendous that something as sensitive as Nvidia chips, I just think he’s got to go,” Cramer told POLITICO late Tuesday.

“If the worst thing he did in real life is infidelity with this woman who may or may not be a Chinese spy — but she might be — that’s enough, because whatever else there is, we don’t know. And to me, that’s a security risk.”

… Gabby Miller (Politico): “Step down Mr. Huang, right now,” Kudlow said on the financial and economic affairs program he hosts on Fox Business Network, characterizing such a move as a “commonsense action.”

Yes. Obviously. You fall on your sword, as Jensen Huang was forced to do.

This was a good statement from the Select Committee on China:

Seven Billion in Sales to China Enabled by Jensen’s Ties to Alice Huang

Megaspeed may only be the secondary scandal. The primary scandal could be Shanghai Century Litong, which became the central supplier to Chinese companies and facilitated at least $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia chips.

The timeline and circumstances strongly suggest that Century Litong was able to do this, and get status as a preferred Nvidia customer shortly after being founded, through the influence of Alice Huang, despite her having zero AI background.

As Rob Wiblin says, this is all pretty crazy. We know national security was compromised, and now we know one of the major ways that this happened.

Jing Yang: Alice & Jensen have known each other since at least 2023. By 2023, when Alice launched her chip biz with no prior background in tech, she quickly established her credibility by boasting her chuminess with Jensen. She told people that Jensen celebrated her birthday every year.

How exactly did the two Huangs met? We find out that Alice’s husband Kang Wei 康伟 got to know Jenson in the 2010s through gaming businesses.

The Information Staff: The two have built a rapport that facilitated the shipment of at least $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia chips through Chinese companies since then, according to two people who know her.