Nvidia board weighs ousting Jensen Huang after 8% stock slide

By Rebecca Stone

Nvidia shares slid more than 8% in after-hours trading Wednesday, Reuters and Agence France-Presse reported; if those losses held, the company would have shed about $600bn in market value since its board announced an investigation into Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse, citing multiple reports, said Nvidia’s 11-member board met Wednesday to decide whether to remove co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang. The decision followed a week in which Huang admitted to an affair with a woman alleged to be a Chinese spy.

On Sunday, Nvidia’s board had expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team. The after-hours decline followed a Wall Street Journal report that the company was preparing to fire Huang. The board’s reversal represented a sharp shift from its position on Sunday.

Armina Rosenberg, portfolio manager and co-founder of Minotaur Capital, which holds Nvidia shares, said: “The market is starting to price Nvidia without its founder as the likely outcome, not a tail risk.”

The market stakes were unusually large for a personnel decision. Reuters and Agence France-Presse described Nvidia as the world’s most valuable chip company, with a market capitalization above $4tn. The roughly $600bn potentially lost since the investigation announcement came against that valuation.

What does Nvidia’s bylaws allow?

Nvidia’s bylaws set two immediate governance thresholds:

• A majority of directors can remove Huang “with or without cause.”
• Nvidia has 11 directors and considers all but Huang independent.

The removal provision gives the board a route to act independently of the investigation’s findings. Nvidia counts 10 of its 11 directors as independent, apart from Huang.

Nvidia said earlier this week it appointed leading law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct a “thorough and independent” investigation into the relationship. The firm directed Huang to continue as CEO while the investigation was ongoing.

What do the relationship allegations say?

In a Sunday email to employees, Huang said he had an affair and would cooperate with an internal investigation. Nvidia’s board said the same day that it was launching an inquiry into reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse identified the woman as Alice Huang, a businesswoman and head of Singapore-based cloud computing firm Megaspeed. The outlets reported that she and Huang had been seen together around the world, dining in restaurants and attending meetings, over the past few years.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse said Huang denied any knowledge that Alice Huang allegedly worked for the Chinese government. Huang has been married to his wife, Lori, since 1985.

The New York Times reported late Wednesday that Huang had a separate extramarital affair with Nvidia employee Kimberly Powell, who served as the company’s president of healthcare. The Times said a video showed Powell and Huang being affectionate at a hotel during a company conference in March.

What has Taiwan said?

On Thursday, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council minister Chiu Chui-cheng said Alice Huang had visited Taiwan a total of eight times in 2024 and 2025. He was responding to a New York Times report that the US had advised Taiwan as early as 2024 to monitor her movements.

Chiu said there were “no special flags” about her at the time. He added: “if we had any of the kind of critical intelligence … we would have definitely flagged her for heightened review.”

That contrast places the reported US request for monitoring beside Taiwan’s own record of scrutiny. Chiu said his government had not assigned Alice Huang the heightened review that the reported request would imply.

Why does Huang’s departure matter?

Reuters and Agence France-Presse described Huang as the ambitious and visionary leader of Nvidia, a company he co-founded in 1993. They said his departure would leave a leadership vacuum as the AI arms race between the US and China reached what the report called an apex.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse said Huang had no obvious successor. Unlike executives at many other major technology companies, he has dozens of direct reports, a management structure the report said emphasized his control over Nvidia.

The report said the broader artificial intelligence ecosystem relies on Nvidia. Its advanced chips train AI models and power companies including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, placing a founder-led transition at the center of that supply chain.

Huang personally owns more than 870m shares, about 3.6% of Nvidia. Reuters and Agence France-Presse described him as one of the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $148bn.

His ownership, operating role and position as co-founder give the dispute significance beyond a routine chief executive succession. The board is weighing the departure of a leader with more than 870m shares, dozens of direct reports and no named successor.

Who is supporting Huang?

Donald Trump backed Huang, saying he had done “an incredible job” and was “an honorable guy.” Major technology industry players, including Elon Musk, also threw their support behind Huang.

Why do export controls enter the case?

Late Wednesday, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked the Trump administration to preserve all documents tied to Nvidia’s chip exports to China. Their letter went to commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, secretary of state Marco Rubio and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller.

The senators wrote: “This incident raises significant concerns about the federal government’s ability to effectively enforce our export controls and protect our national security.”

Their request connects a personal-conduct investigation with the export-control system governing Nvidia’s China business. Nvidia’s chips sit at the center of the US-China AI competition described in the report, so the senators framed the allegations as a test of federal enforcement.

Nvidia did not immediately return a request for comment.

The next decisive step is a board vote: Nvidia’s bylaws permit a majority to remove Huang “with or without cause,” while Wachtell’s investigation remains underway and the report identifies no obvious successor. A change would test whether the company can operate its $4tn AI-chip business without Huang, its 1993 co-founder and the executive with dozens of direct reports.