Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO After Affair Scandal Wipes $1 Trillion in Value

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Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive of Nvidia, ending a 33-year run at the head of the company he co-founded and turning the world’s most valuable chipmaker into the centre of a scandal that has wiped more than $1 trillion off its market value. Nvidia announced on Thursday 12 November 2026 that Huang, 63, had stepped down as president, chief executive and board member with immediate effect, days after he admitted an extramarital affair and reports emerged of further relationships, including one with a woman United States intelligence officials believe was recruited by Chinese intelligence.

The resignation closes one of the most dramatic falls in corporate history. Huang built Nvidia from a graphics-chip start-up founded in 1993 into the engine of the artificial intelligence boom, a company that reached a record valuation of about $5.8 trillion in October 2026. His departure leaves Nvidia without its best-known leader at the very moment the AI industry depends on its chips, and with its board, its interim chief executive and its shareholders all facing questions that will not be answered quickly.

Jensen Huang Resigns — Quick Reference Summary

How a Month of Revelations Ended a 33-Year Reign

The crisis did not arrive in a single day. It built across late October and early November, with each new report narrowing Huang’s room to stay. The New York Times first reported on 29 October 2026 that Huang had a “close relationship” with Alice Huang, a former executive at the Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed. Nvidia’s board announced an investigation on 8 November, the same day Huang emailed employees to admit he had been unfaithful to his wife.

That admission might have contained the damage. Instead, the story widened. On Wednesday 11 November, The New York Times reported a second affair, this time with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reports directly to Huang. The Wall Street Journal reported the same day that the board was preparing to oust him. By Thursday morning, Huang had resigned, and Nvidia’s shares had lost roughly $546 billion in value within an hour of the markets opening.

The speed of the fall is hard to overstate. Less than a month earlier, Nvidia had been valued at about $5.2 trillion when the first Times report appeared, and at a record $5.8 trillion in October. By the following morning after Huang’s admission, roughly $1 trillion had already been erased. The resignation itself then took another huge slice, with shares falling as much as 13 per cent in early trading before paring losses to about 4 per cent.

The Alice Huang Allegation and the China Question

The most serious part of the scandal is not the affair itself. It is who the other person is said to be. Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, was a senior executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based buyer of Nvidia chips. CNN reported that US officials had told the network she had a relationship with Jensen Huang, and that US intelligence had concluded in a classified memo issued in May 2026 that she was a Chinese intelligence asset.

Megaspeed was already under federal investigation for allegedly diverting highly coveted US semiconductors to entities in China in violation of American export controls. Bloomberg, citing documents, reported that a company Alice Huang founded had obtained smuggled AI chips for a Shanghai data centre tied to Megaspeed. The spy allegation itself remains unproven, and Beijing has dismissed the espionage claims.

Nvidia said on Sunday 8 November that its board had “no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised”, while adding that its inquiry would examine all available information. The distinction matters. No official finding has said secrets were passed on, and the board’s independent investigation, run by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, is still under way. What the affair created was a vulnerability: the chief executive of the company that makes the chips at the centre of the AI race was, according to US intelligence, the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

That vulnerability explains why the story travelled so fast from the business pages to Washington. Republican committee chairs have summoned Huang to closed-door testimony, and he has been asked to appear at a briefing in Congress on 18 November, the day after Nvidia reports its quarterly results. President Donald Trump announced on 8 November that the FBI was investigating.

A Second Affair, a Board Meeting, and a Resignation

The second reported affair changed the board’s arithmetic. Kimberly Powell, 48, is Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare and joined the chipmaker in 2008. The New York Times reported on 11 November that Huang had a relationship with Powell, citing video evidence of him being affectionate with her. An unreported relationship with a direct report would be a violation of Nvidia’s code of conduct, and it arrived while the board was already investigating the first affair.

Reuters then reported a further relationship with another Nvidia employee, taking the reported total to three. None of the allegations beyond Huang’s own admission has been confirmed by Nvidia. The company did not give a reason for his departure when it announced the resignation, and Huang also gave up his seat on the board.

The board’s handling of the crisis has itself become part of the story. The board is largely made up of early investors and longtime confidants of Huang, which is why the decision to hire an outside law firm and then accept the resignation of a founder who had run the company almost single-handedly for 33 years carried so much weight. It also explains the reaction inside Nvidia: an internal post urging the board to weigh staff sentiment about Huang drew more than 1,600 comments, most of them backing his return as chief executive, according to WIRED.

More Than $1 Trillion Gone: What the Market Did Next

The financial damage is the largest of its kind ever attached to a chief executive’s personal conduct. Nvidia’s shares fell as much as 14 per cent during trading on Thursday 12 November, and the stock has now fallen more than 30 per cent from its October peak, wiping out more than $1 trillion in market value since the scandal began. Retail investors bought a net $111 million worth of Nvidia shares in the first 30 minutes of trading on Thursday, according to Vanda Research data, betting the crash had gone too far.

Analyst Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives, who values Nvidia at $300 a share with Huang as chief executive and $225 without him, called the affair “a gut punch for Nvidia and the US tech industry”. His arithmetic captures why the market reacted so violently: Huang was viewed as so critical to Nvidia’s success that the chipmaker is worth roughly $1 trillion less without him at the helm.

The contrast with other corporate shake-ups this week is sharp. Klarna’s shares jumped after naming a new chief financial officer, a routine appointment that the market rewarded. Nvidia’s board, by contrast, has lost the leader who persuaded the White House to roll back restrictions on chip sales to China, who built a web of about $124 billion in equity investments across the AI industry, and who owned nearly $30 billion worth of Intel stock and roughly $21 billion of SpaceX stock on Nvidia’s behalf as of an August regulatory filing.

Colette Kress Steps In as Nvidia Searches for a Successor

Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer and executive vice-president, has taken over as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent replacement. Kress joined Nvidia in 2013 after nearly 25 years at companies including Cisco and Microsoft, and she oversaw the financing strategy behind Huang’s deal-making. The board also named Harvey C. Jones, a former chief executive of chip design software firm Synopsys, as its first-ever chair.

Her first test arrives almost immediately. Nvidia reports its third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday 17 November, with revenue of $96.2 billion reported for the second quarter and a forecast of $108 billion for the next quarter already on the table. Investors will want to hear whether the numbers are holding up while the leadership question hangs open, and whether the board’s investigation has found anything that changes the company’s position.

The succession question is genuinely open. Hollywood is going through its own changing of the guard, with James Gunn and Peter Safran stepping down at DC Studios, but a film studio can change creative leadership without shaking a global supply chain. Nvidia’s chips train roughly 90 per cent of frontier AI models, so whoever takes the job inherits not just a company but a central position in the world’s most important technology race. The board has named no successor and given no timetable.

Why Huang Mattered So Much That His Exit Moved Markets

Huang’s importance went far beyond the chief executive’s office. He co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and ran it for 33 years, building it from a maker of graphics chips for video games into the company whose processors power almost every serious AI system on the planet. He was the public face of the AI boom, instantly recognisable in his leather jacket, and a central figure in the revolution set off by the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022.

He also spent the past two years building a close relationship with the president and shaping American AI policy from inside the room, persuading the administration to roll back restrictions on chip sales to China. That political role is part of why the scandal has drawn in Congress and the FBI rather than staying a boardroom matter.

The personal cost to Huang is also enormous. He remains Nvidia’s largest individual shareholder, with a stake of about 3.6 per cent according to the company’s most recent filing, and the scandal has devalued his own share of the company by more than $50 billion. He has been married to his wife Lori for more than 40 years, and his admission of infidelity was made in his own words to his own employees, with no excuse offered.

What Happens Next for Nvidia

Four things will decide how this story ends. The first is the quarterly results on 17 November, which will show whether the business itself is still growing through the crisis. The second is the board’s independent investigation, which must determine whether Huang was honest with the board and whether any secrets were compromised. The third is the shareholder lawsuit, filed on Monday 9 November in a California court, which alleges Nvidia and Huang deceived investors in their responses to media reports about the affair.

The fourth is succession. More than 1,600 employees have publicly backed Huang’s return, but a board that has just accepted a founder’s resignation over an affair with a suspected foreign intelligence asset is unlikely to reverse course quickly. The search for a permanent chief executive will be one of the most watched appointments in corporate history, and it will happen while Congress, the FBI and the markets are all still asking questions.

For now, Nvidia is a $4 trillion company without the leader who made it one. The chips still ship, the data centres still run, and the AI boom still needs what Nvidia makes. What has changed is the certainty that used to come with the name on the door.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Why did Jensen Huang resign as Nvidia CEO?

Nvidia announced on Thursday 12 November 2026 that Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and board member with immediate effect. The company gave no reason. The resignation followed his admission of an extramarital affair on 8 November, a board investigation, and New York Times reports of a second affair with a Nvidia executive and a further reported relationship.

Q2: Who is Alice Huang?

Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, is a former senior executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based buyer of Nvidia chips. The New York Times first reported on 29 October 2026 that Jensen Huang had a “close relationship” with her. US intelligence concluded in a classified memo issued in May 2026 that she was a Chinese intelligence asset, according to CNN reporting. She is not known to be related to Jensen Huang.

Q3: Who is Kimberly Powell?

Kimberly Powell, 48, is Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare and joined the company in 2008. The New York Times reported on 11 November 2026 that Huang had a relationship with Powell, who reports to him. Reuters also reported a further relationship with another Nvidia employee.

Q4: Who is running Nvidia now?

Chief financial officer Colette Kress is interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent successor. The board named Harvey C. Jones, a former Synopsys chief executive, as its first-ever chair.

Q5: How much value has Nvidia lost?

More than $1 trillion in market value has been erased since the scandal broke in late October, according to WIRED’s tally. About $546 billion was lost within an hour of the resignation announcement on 12 November, and shares have fallen more than 30 per cent from their October peak.

Q6: Did Jensen Huang admit to the affair?

Yes. In an email to employees on Sunday 8 November 2026, Huang admitted he had been unfaithful to his wife and said there was no excuse. He has not confirmed the other reported relationships, and Nvidia has not confirmed the allegations beyond his admission.

Myths vs Facts

Myth: Jensen Huang was fired because of the affair alone.

Fact: Nvidia gave no reason for his departure. The resignation followed a board investigation, a second reported affair with a direct report, a Wall Street Journal report that the board was preparing to oust him, and a shareholder lawsuit. The affair was the trigger, not the whole story.

Myth: Alice Huang is related to Jensen Huang.

Fact: They share a surname, but multiple outlets, including WIRED, state that the two are not known to be related. She was a senior executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer.

Myth: Nvidia has confirmed that its secrets were stolen.

Fact: Nvidia said its board had “no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised”. The independent investigation is still under way, and no official finding has said secrets were passed on.