Nvidia CEO黄仁勋因婚外情丑闻辞职，市值跌破4万亿美元

Video shares finished lower on Friday after a very chaotic week that, as we've been talking about, saw its founder and longtime CEO, Huang, resign after reports of several extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy. NVIDIA dropped another 2%, adding to the recent nosedive that's brought the market cap below $4,000,000,000,000 far behind Apple as the world's most valuable company. While an interim CEO has been named, the company says its search for a permanent replacement will include both internal and external candidates.

Bloomberg's Emily Chang sat down with Huang just one month ago before this news broke, and she asked him during that interview about the pressures of leading one of the world's most valuable companies and who might one day succeed him. I'm responsible for an entire industry. And so I think the the pressure of being the CEO is high, and it's supposed to be high. It shouldn't be an... It should not be an easy job. It shouldn't be a job that you take for granted.

When I decided to be CEO, you know, I didn't didn't realize the the the magnitude of the pressure and and responsibilities, but, you know, look, that's what I that's what I signed up for. And so now now that my family and all of the people that are near me see see the the the responsibility of this job and what it takes, then they they just gotta ask themselves, you know, whether this is the level of sacrifice and responsibility you want.

And I'm really hoping that the next CEO of the company is already at the company. But but twenty years from now, I hope I stay healthy, and and I hope I I continue to earn my my keep. But so long as I I can do that twenty years from now, I hope I hope they're already here and... But they have to earn it. Twenty years from now. Emily joins us now from San Francisco. Emily, just wild to watch that taped just a few weeks ago.

I imagine it's even more wild for you to have watched it. In light of all that... That's happened here, how are you thinking through what he was saying then and what's happened since... How are you processing these developments in yours... Yourself? Again, you were traveling with him on this big trip trip through Europe. And as as you've written, he was kind of at the prime of his powers. It was a a kind of a victory tour for him.

Gensanity at its utmost, over the continent of Europe. That is what we saw. We went with him to four countries in four days, and, obviously, this isn't how we expected the story to pan pan out, but we realize now that we got the last wide ranging sit down with him as CEO. And we went into it knowing that this is a company that didn't have a clear successor, never disclosed publicly a succession plan. There has been speculation.

His his daughter works at the company. His son works at the company. His son-in-law works at the company. And so I asked who might be next because investors, you know, have said over time, how can a... At that time, $5,000,000,000,000 company Mhmm. Not have a designated successor? And his family is so intertwined in the company that's that's another question here. But he basically paid himself so indispensable in terms of the way he ran the company with this flat management structure structure and 60 direct reports that there was no second person in line, and he obviously had the expectation that he was gonna be there for a couple more decades.

I mean, do you think that was strategic on his part? You you see this with Musk and some of these other tech leaders who are verging on, you know, icon status if you ask them, that they don't really want to designate a successor because in a way that diminishes their influence and their power at the center of these little universes. Quite possibly. I mean, he obviously, you know, cares deeply about this company having run it for thirty three years and and grown it into this behemoth.

And like you mentioned, David, we saw him at sort of peak Gensanity where there were developers and fans out the door and around the block waiting to see him, everyone wanting to get a picture with him. You realize he's not just the guy at the center of the AI boom and NVIDIA's chief salesman, chief salesman, but he is also sort of the chief diplomat. He was meeting and glad handing with world leaders and tech CEOs. And in each of these countries, I realized how deeply intertwined is he is in in...

Not just NVIDIA's relationships with companies, like big AI companies, but with countries and with governments. You know? He met with French president Emmanuel Macron. He met with the prime minister of The UK while while we were there. And you have to wonder if those relationships are going to be compromised in the next phase of this company. Picking apart what he said there, that line about how he hopes the next CEO will be at the company already.

So Colette Kress elevated to this position on an interim basis. What do you think about her longer term prospects? What do you think about the search that is, I assume, already underway to find a a permanent CEO? And as you know so well, all of these companies have kind of a unique culture to them. How important is it that somebody who is elevated to CEO comes from within NVIDIA's ranks? So, look, everything that I've heard about Colette Kress is that she is she's obviously a very seasoned executive who knows the company inside and out.

There was some, speculation that maybe she would be named in in a sort of co CEO, structure with Ian Buck, who is the the creator of CUDA and also a very powerful person at the company. I think that NVIDIA probably wanted to give itself some flexibility in in in terms of, you know, looking both inside and outside the company. And there are a lot of governance issues that they're going to have to deal with, as they figure this process out.

There have been an, you know, a number of outside names floated. Rene Haas, the Feet, just reported that, someone reached out to him. He obviously worked at NVIDIA previously. He knows the chip fit business very well. Lisa Sue, the CEO of AMD, her name has been floated, but she's running a very successful company as anyone busy. And anyone who comes into this situation is gonna have to deal with a lot of of governments ish...

Governance issues with government investigations, with this whole China issue. And, you know, on the on the on the China part of it, you know, obviously, you know, Jensen, we we we talked about when when we were in Europe, he... And he sort of reiterated its stance that The US should be selling its most advanced chips to China because otherwise, China will develop its own domestic capabilities, and that will put The United States in a bad competitive position.

My understanding is that Colette Kress felt the same way. Right? And so if there are national security implications here, that's a much bigger issue. And lawmakers are gonna wanna know what everyone knew at the company, not just Jensen Huang. Well, that's... I was trying to explain to somebody who's not in this world at all why this matters today. And they're saying, what is the big deal? What's going on? And I said it's it's not just that he has a messy personal life.

It's that part of this messy personal life is with someone who might have been an agent of the Chinese government, and this is the person who was the face of this issue on the diplomatic front lobbying the White House, as you just mentioned, lobbying foreign governments. We have some sound from your interview where you asked him about this issue. I did my best to inform the policymakers of The United States of the importance of engaging the Chinese market and making sure that we serve that market for as long as we can.

I think we made a made a mistake, and and this mistake is hard to unwind. But I did my best. That's all I could do. There are more Chinese AI researchers than any other nation in the world, and many of them working at the labs. I've been very clear that