Jensen Huang’s Nvidia empire just lost its founding CEO. Huang resigned this morning after revelations about two extramarital affairs, ending his run at the chipmaker he founded in 1993 and sending Nvidia’s stock into a sharp downturn.
The first affair involved Alice Huang, a businesswoman at Megaspeed, a Chinese AI infrastructure company that facilitated Nvidia chip sales to Chinese companies. Intelligence agencies have alleged that Alice Huang was a Chinese spy working for the Chinese government, which has denied the accusation.
The second affair involved Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare and a subordinate who reported to Huang. The 63-year-old executive had as many as 200 people reporting to him, so the company’s leadership structure was not exactly built for discreet personal complications.
Huang acknowledged the affairs in a company memo made public on 8 November. “I owe my family and all of you an apology. I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry,” he wrote.
His statement also addressed the national security concerns surrounding Alice Huang. “Nvidia’s Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation,” Huang said, adding that he would cooperate fully and was committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America’s national security.
The personal fallout reaches Nvidia’s balance sheet
Huang’s public image had been built for spectacle: expensive leather jackets, often from Tom Ford, a rock star persona and a network that included Donald Trump, Elon Musk and King Charles. His book about the company’s inner workings is titled Nvidia Way, a name that now carries an unfortunate amount of extra material.
Before the revelations, Huang had an estimated net worth close to $200bn. Nvidia shares then plummeted, cutting his fortune to an estimated $148bn and pushing him down Bloomberg’s Billionaires index. The money remains obscene by ordinary standards, but markets have a talent for turning personal scandal into accounting.
Colette Kress takes over for now. Kress has worked at Nvidia for 13 years and will be a familiar face inside a company that must manage an independent investigation, a leadership change and national security questions at the same time.
Huang’s wife, Lori Mills Huang, has been married to him for more than 40 years; another account describes the marriage as lasting 41 years. The couple live in a $38m (£29m) mansion on San Francisco’s Billionaires’ Row overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, and California law treats earnings during a marriage as community property that should be split equally in a divorce.
That makes the financial stakes enormous. The Huangs could overtake Bill and Melinda French Gates’ $76bn divorce if there is no prenup, while Lori could receive an even split of Huang’s 12-figure fortune if she decides to leave him. As one quoted user put it: “Don’t get mad, get everything.”
Lori Huang’s role was more than decorative
Lori presides over the $9bn Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation, which the couple established in 2007. The foundation supports higher education, public health, science, technology and STEM initiatives, including a $50m donation to Oregon State University for a research and education centre focused on AI robotics, material science and other fields.
Oregon State University is also where the couple met. Huang has publicly credited Lori’s role in his career, telling the Singapore-based media outlet CNA that “every moment of Nvidia, she was there.” In another statement, he said, “You need people like that, and Lori’s always been that person for me — ever since I was 18, she was there believing in me and knowing I could do it. Even when I had self-doubts, she didn’t.”
Neither Lori nor the foundation has issued a statement after the reports of Huang’s infidelities and resignation. Both of Huang’s adult children work at Nvidia, adding another layer to the family’s connection with the company and its sudden leadership crisis.
That is where Mark Zuckerberg enters the comparison. The Meta CEO met Priscilla Chan as a student at Harvard University, and they share two children. In 2024, Zuckerberg recorded a cover of T-Pain’s “Get Low,” the song apparently playing when they first met, then built a 7-foot-tall statue of Chan and urged others to revive the “Roman tradition of making statues for your wife.”
Meta and its CEO might attract their share of business scandal, but the Zuckerberg-Chan union now looks like Silicon Valley’s strongest elite marriage by comparison. Zuckerberg’s wife-guy campaign was already excessive; next to Nvidia’s collapse, it is starting to look like risk management.
Huang’s fall also marks a striking reversal in status. The last time one account saw him was at St James’ Palace last year, where he received the Queen’s Prize for Engineering, while Elon Musk has said it would be “an honour” to work with him at SpaceX. Prestige, wealth and leather jackets can build a myth. They cannot make the consequences disappear.
Based on
- Mark Zuckerberg Maintains Status as Tech’s One True Wife Guy — futurism.com
- Did Jensen Huang’s messy affair just tank the AI industry? | Opinion — usatoday.com
- Zoe Kleinman: How AI visionary Jensen Huang was undone by his own bad decisions — bbc.com
- Jensen Huang’s wife will become one of the richest women in the world if she leaves him – this is what she might get | The Independent — independent.co.uk
- Who is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s wife, Lori, whom he cheated on? | South China Morning Post — scmp.com
