Nvidia's board convened late Wednesday to decide whether to oust Chief Executive Jensen Huang following revelations of two extramarital affairs, including one with a woman suspected of spying for China.
The meeting follows a Wall Street Journal report that the board was preparing to remove the 63-year-old co-founder. Huang faces allegations of relationships with Alice Huang, a Singapore-based executive whom U.S. intelligence believes worked for Chinese intelligence. He is also alleged to have had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's 48-year-old vice president of health care who reports directly to him.
Nvidia shares fell approximately 8 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday following the reports. Losses have wiped out more than $600 billion in market value since the board announced its investigation into the Alice Huang relationship. The stock has declined roughly $1 trillion in total market capitalization since The New York Times first reported the suspected spy connection on Oct. 29.
The company launched an internal investigation led by the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz after Huang admitted in a memo to employees earlier this week that he had been unfaithful to his wife. Republican leaders of three House committees have called for Huang to appear for a closed-door briefing regarding his interactions with the alleged intelligence asset.
Huang's potential departure would leave the roughly $4 trillion chipmaker without its co-founder, Reuters reported. The company controls about 90 percent of the market for chips used in large AI projects. He has no obvious successor and owns about 3.6 percent of Nvidia's stock. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has been mentioned as a natural choice for interim CEO, while Ian Buck, who oversees the data center business, is favored by prediction markets as a potential successor.
The New York Times reported that Huang and Powell were observed behaving affectionately at a San Jose hotel during Nvidia's annual developer conference in March. A bystander recorded the interaction on a smartphone, after which members of Huang's security detail sequestered the individual and offered a non-disclosure agreement, according to three people briefed on the incident. During the same conference, Powell delivered a presentation featuring cartoon depictions of Huang.
Alice Huang, who is also known as Huang Le, visited Taiwan eight times in 2024 and 2025 using a Hong Kong passport under standard business visitor status, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council minister said Thursday. She was seen at a dinner in May 2025 hosted by Jensen Huang at a Chinese restaurant in Taipei during Computex, the island's top tech expo, where video showed him putting his arm around her as she kissed his cheek.
When reached by phone Wednesday, Huang said, "I don't think you should be talking to me directly," before hanging up. Nvidia declined to comment on the board meeting. The company's quarterly results are due on Nov. 17.
