// TECHCRUNCH — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
The unfolding Jensen Huang scandal: a timeline
Nvidia co-founder and (now former) CEO Jensen Huang has never been as flashy or controversy-prone as AI leaders like OpenAI’s Sam Altman or SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk. Now, the 63-year-old industry kingpin has admitted that he cheated on his wife of 40 years in affairs that could have ramifications beyond Huang’s personal life and U.S. national security.
U.S. officials believe that Huang’s likely romantic interest, Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, is a Chinese spy who has been feeding information back to Beijing. (Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen, is of no relation to Jensen Huang.)
Megaspeed is a Singapore-based AI infrastructure company that reportedly purchased $4.8 billion in Nvidia chips over the last two years. The U.S. and Singapore have both previously investigated Megaspeed over suspicions that the firm was illegally sharing chips with China. The Justice Department has since taken over the federal investigation into the company, The New York Times has reported.
The story took a sudden new turn on Wednesday. Citing five people who worked at Nvidia, the Times reported that Huang also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care, who reports directly to him. Nvidia, Huang and Powell have not confirmed the report. Reached by a Times reporter, Huang reportedly said, “I don’t think you should be talking to me directly,” before hanging up.
Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia’s board is preparing to oust Huang, and Nvidia’s shares fell in after-hours trading.
The U.S. and China are embroiled in a fierce technological arms race to build the most advanced AI infrastructure, which could shape each country’s economic future, military prowess, and capacity for innovation. Nvidia is valuable in this competition as one of the world’s largest makers of AI chips, which are essential for accelerating AI development. But as an American company, Nvidia faces government restrictions on the sale of its most powerful chips to Chinese entities.
As the controversy unfolds, we are organizing the most relevant events into a reverse-chronological timeline to keep you up to date.
Nvidia confirmed in an SEC filing on Thursday that the board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday. The company’s current CFO, Collete Kress, will take over as interim CEO while still fulfilling her CFO duties. Nvidia is expected to conduct a larger search to determine a permanent successor to Huang.
Harvey C. Jones, a managing partner of Square Wave Ventures and former CEO of Synopsys, was appointed as the company’s first-ever chair of the board of directors. Jones has been on Nvidia’s board since 1993.
After reports of a second extramarital affair, Nvidia’s board reportedly plans to meet to discuss Huang’s future at the company, per the Wall Street Journal. Stock fell about 8% in after hours trading on Wednesday and is down 11% in the past five days.