Nvidia Board Meets to Decide CEO Jensen Huang's Fate as Crisis Deepens

Nvidia's board is meeting late Wednesday to decide whether to remove CEO Jensen Huang, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, as reports of two extramarital affairs deepen a leadership crisis at the world's dominant supplier of AI chips. The company's stock slid more than 8% in extended trading after the Wall Street Journal first reported that Nvidia was preparing to fire him.

The stakes are enormous. Huang co-founded Nvidia more than three decades ago and built it into a roughly $4 trillion company at the center of the global AI boom and the U.S.-China technology rivalry. If the after-hours losses hold, Nvidia will have lost about $600 billion in market value since the board announced its investigation into his relationship with a businesswoman called Alice Huang, alleged to be a Chinese spy.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the board meeting.

What can the board actually do?

Under Nvidia's bylaws, a majority of directors can remove Huang "with or without cause." The company has 11 directors and considers all but Huang independent. That gives the board a clean legal path to an exit if it chooses one.

The meeting marks a sharp shift from Sunday, when Nvidia's board expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team. In a memo to employees that same day, Huang acknowledged being unfaithful to his wife and took "full responsibility," but gave no details about the relationship.

In short: the board has the power, and the timeline moved from public backing to a removal vote in three days.

How did we get here?

The chain of events started with U.S. intelligence. Revelations that intelligence agencies were probing Alice Huang for facilitating shipments of Nvidia chips to Chinese firms set off a cascade:

• Wall Street began raising questions about Nvidia's governance and Jensen Huang's personal conduct.
• The company's board launched an internal investigation and hired outside counsel.
• Lawmakers began pushing for tighter curbs on chip exports to China.

The controversy reached the White House. President Donald Trump said he had not discussed the allegations with Huang but voiced support for the Nvidia chief, a close ally. Huang also faces a potential congressional subpoena if he doesn't respond to a request to provide a closed-door briefing about the allegations concerning his affair with a Chinese spy.

Separately, Axios reported on Wednesday, citing high-level sources, that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stalled Trump's crackdown on companies suspected of diverting Nvidia's chips to China. The White House and a spokesperson for Lutnick did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

What are the new allegations?

Earlier on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Huang had also had an extramarital affair with a company executive who reported to him. The relationship was with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, the Times said, citing five people who worked at the company.

When reached by phone Wednesday and asked about his relationship with Powell, Huang said: "I don't think you should be talking to me directly." He then hung up, the New York Times reported.

Nvidia and Powell did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

The takeaway: a second, internal relationship involving a direct report compounds the governance problem beyond the original China-linked allegations.

Who would replace Huang?

Huang, 63, has no obvious successor. He owns about 3.6% of Nvidia's stock and has dozens of direct reports, underscoring the tight control he maintains over the company he built.

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Nvidia's board has been working with an outside firm to identify potential replacements, citing a person familiar with the situation.

Armina Rosenberg, portfolio manager and co-founder of Minotaur Capital, which holds Nvidia shares, said Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress — in the role for more than a decade — would be the natural choice as interim CEO. But she said the bigger question was who would lead Nvidia's technology roadmap longer term.

Prediction markets are already pricing an exit. Odds on Polymarket shifted sharply to show an 88% chance that Huang would resign or be removed by the end of the year. Odds for his successor favored Ian Buck, who oversees the business serving Nvidia's data center clients.

The plain reading: traders now treat Huang's departure as the base case, not an outlier.

What is the market fallout?

U.S. stock futures sank, with Nasdaq futures down 1%. Micron fell nearly 2% and CoreWeave dropped 6% in after-hours trading. Shares of rival chipmakers moved the other way: AMD rose 4% and Broadcom rose 3%. In Asia, Samsung Electronics rose about 1% while SK Hynix dipped nearly 1%.

Rosenberg put the market's framing bluntly: "The market is starting to price Nvidia without its founder as the likely outcome, not a tail risk," she said. "Losing Jensen would be a real blow."

Investors and analysts said demand for Nvidia's chips would be unlikely to drop in the near term. The risk sits further out — in the broader universe of companies backed by Nvidia, largely customers building data centers that will use its chips.

"They are financing their customers. In these types of booms or bubbles, sometimes all it takes is a slowdown to shift it into the bust phase," said Nick Ferres, chief investment officer at Vantage Point Asset Management in Singapore.

Why this week matters twice over

The leadership turmoil lands just days before Nvidia's quarterly results, due November 17. Investors will now parse that report not only for financial performance and outlook, but for any signal about who runs the company next — and whether the AI spending cycle Nvidia finances itself can hold if its founder exits.

The board's decision, the November 17 results and the congressional pressure on chip exports all converge in the same fortnight, making this the most consequential stretch for Nvidia since the start of the AI boom.