Nvidia's Jensen Huang resigns over affairs, including with alleged Chinese spy
Chief financial officer Colette Kress becomes interim chief executive as the chip maker's shares fall and a Singapore-linked spy scandal widens.
Jensen Huang has resigned as Nvidia's chief executive, president and board member, effective immediately. He had acknowledged extramarital affairs, one of them with a former executive of a Singapore-based company whom US authorities suspect of spying for China, ABC News, SBS News, The Hindu and Al Jazeera reported.
Chief financial officer Colette Kress, who joined Nvidia in 2013, will serve as interim chief executive and keep her finance role while the board considers internal and external candidates, The Hindu reported. SBS said former Synopsys chief executive Harvey Jones had been named the company's first board chairman. Mr Jones said he expected "the company's operations, customer commitments and product road map to continue without interruption", according to the ABC.
The woman, Alice Huang, is a Chinese citizen and former managing director of data centre company Megaspeed. The ABC, citing The New York Times, said US intelligence had determined she was gathering information for China. Beijing denies this. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the US should stop making up "so-called spy stories" to justify technology blockades, SBS reported. Nvidia said it had "no reason to believe" national security or company secrets were compromised.
Singapore's home affairs ministry confirmed Ms Huang was banned from re-entering the country after she left in February. It said she was investigated for possible offences, including buying servers exported via Singapore to Malaysia, but there was insufficient evidence and she was given a warning. Bloomberg News reported she is living in Beijing with the knowledge of security officials, SBS said. Megaspeed said it took US export control obligations "extremely seriously".
On Wednesday The New York Times reported Mr Huang had also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reported to him. The board met that day to consider removing him, with the ABC reporting the meeting ran into the early hours of Thursday.
Reports of the share fall differed. The Hindu said Nvidia dropped 10 per cent in premarket trading, the ABC reported a 13 per cent plunge in early Wall Street trade, and SBS said shares fell more than 14 per cent at the open before recovering to a loss of about 5 per cent. Asian shares also fell on Thursday, the ABC said. Mr Huang, 63, holds about 3.6 per cent of the roughly $US4 trillion ($A5.8 trillion) company.
US President Donald Trump, who confirmed the FBI was looking into the affair, said on Truth Social that Apple's Tim Cook should replace Mr Huang. Al Jazeera noted Mr Trump approved exports of Nvidia's H200 chips to China in December 2025. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was "in favour" of limiting chip exports to China.
Nvidia and Mr Huang face a proposed class action alleging they defrauded shareholders by concealing his ties to Ms Huang. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast said he expected Mr Huang to testify to Congress within the next week. Nvidia's quarterly results are due on November 17.
Sources: ABC News, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang quits after affair with alleged Chinese spy; SBS News, Nvidia CEO quits following affair allegations involving suspected spy; The Hindu, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns amid spy scandal; Al Jazeera, Why did Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resign, and who is Colette Kress?.
