I watched a phone illuminate the ballroom and felt the room tilt. You can almost hear the whisper: a founder’s legend, fraying in public. By Thursday, Jensen Huang was gone.
I’m writing from the inside of what happened next so you can follow the threads without getting lost in the noise. You’ll get the facts, the players, and the political pressure that turned a private scandal into a corporate rupture.
At a news conference the board thanked him for his service — then moved on to staffing decisions
Nvidia announced on Thursday that Jensen Huang resigned as president, CEO, and as a board member, effective immediately, while Colette Kress, the company’s CFO since 2013, will serve as interim CEO and retain her CFO duties. The board named longtime director Harvey C. Jones its first-ever chair and said it will evaluate internal and external candidates for a permanent leader. The statement sidestepped the sex and counterintelligence allegations, instead thanking Huang for his contributions and promising continuity in operations.
Why did Jensen Huang resign from Nvidia?
Reports from The New York Times and other outlets tied Huang’s exit to multiple extramarital affairs and to concerns about one partner’s alleged ties to China’s Ministry of State Security. The board had previously said there was “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised” while launching an inquiry, but new reporting intensified scrutiny and forced a faster course of action.
At a conference, a bystander recorded intimacy — then legal and security teams moved
According to the Times, a bystander captured moments between Huang and Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, at an Nvidia event in March 2026. The person who filmed the encounter was confronted by Huang’s security detail and presented with a nondisclosure document; it’s unclear whether it was signed. That incident followed earlier revelations about an affair with Alice Huang, who had been listed as a managing director at Singapore-based Megaspeed International and is suspected by some U.S. officials to have worked for Chinese intelligence.
At the center of the storm: chips, sanctions and opaque sales records
The U.S. tightened exports of Nvidia’s most powerful AI chips to China, but carved out limited approvals for less advanced H200 units to select Chinese entities. A recent NYT investigation reported that some recipients named in paperwork didn’t exist, deepening questions about how exemptions were used and whether due diligence failed. That finding magnified the risk narrative around ties between personnel and foreign actors.
Was Nvidia’s technology compromised?
The board’s public position so far: no evidence that secrets or national security were breached. National security officials, however, have been working through a messy mix of vessel-names, shell companies, and export approvals—while lawmakers pressed for documents. The Commerce Department’s handling of Megaspeed and export permissions has become a focal point of congressional interest.
At the White House, officials argued over whether to add Megaspeed to a blacklist
Reporting by Axios and other outlets shows a White House split: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly confronted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over why Megaspeed wasn’t on the Commerce Department’s entity list. Critics say the hold-up reflected fear of escalating trade tensions with Beijing. Meanwhile, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked the administration to preserve Nvidia-related records for potential probes, signaling the kind of oversight that arrives when congressional control shifts.
Who will run Nvidia now?
Interim leadership under Colette Kress buys the company time, but many analysts describe Nvidia as tightly identified with Huang’s public persona—a leather-jacketed founder who sold chips and cachet to governments and investors alike. Investors and customers will watch the search for a permanent CEO closely; any misstep could unsettle partnerships tied to cloud platforms, hyperscalers, and defense contractors that rely on Nvidia silicon.
At the center of influence: donations, access, and the White House
Nvidia’s political ties are stark. The company has donated at least $26 million (€24.2 million) to projects linked to former President Donald Trump—$25 million (€23.3 million) for a ballroom renovation and $1 million (€930,000) to an inaugural fund, according to reporting—and some of those gifts were initially intended to be anonymous. Trump reportedly knew of the initial affair and alleged intelligence link in 2025 and again in May 2026; his public comments afterward suggested little appetite to act.
Those connections have turned a corporate scandal into a political story. When billionaires, global supply chains, and national security intersect, the pressure multiplies fast.
At market close, wealth numbers and reputational damage tracked downward
Forbes estimated Huang’s net worth at $154.7 billion (€143.9 billion) as of Nov. 9, even after a pronounced hit linked to the earlier revelations; the number has likely fallen further since the second report. Nvidia said it will report earnings as scheduled, a signal that business must go on even when leadership is suddenly unmoored.
I won’t sugarcoat the stakes: this is a corporate saga that began in personal choices and spread into export policy, congressional oversight, and the boardroom. The questions you should be watching next are procedural and political—how thorough the board’s investigation will be, what Commerce records reveal, and whether congressional subpoenas follow.
Two images keep spinning in my head: the company as a sleek engine, suddenly missing a cog, and a mirror cracked so the reflection no longer matches the story the company sold the market. Those metaphors matter because they show how fragile institutional trust can be when private behavior tangles with public risk.
I’ll keep tracking the filings, the committee letters, and the people moving through the story: Alice Huang and Megaspeed; Kimberly Powell; Colette Kress and Harvey C. Jones; reporters at The New York Times and CNN; and lawmakers like Warren and Coons. You should watch the Commerce Department’s timelines, the entity-list revisions, and Nvidia’s next earnings call for clues about what comes next.
What do you think will determine Nvidia’s fate: a quick, clean handoff and rigorous audit, or a prolonged political inquiry that reshapes who gets to build the next generation of AI chips?
