Huang Out at Nvidia

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Europe’s future involvement in Russia-Ukraine peace talks, and mounting political tensions in Indonesia. Nvidia’s Empty Throne Two extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy, marked the undoing of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who resigned on Thursday amid growing calls for his departure and a substantial drop in the company’s stock price. Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Europe’s future involvement in Russia-Ukraine peace talks, and mounting political tensions in Indonesia. Nvidia’s Empty Throne Two extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy, marked the undoing of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who resigned on Thursday amid growing calls for his departure and a substantial drop in the company’s stock price. Huang has been seen as the face of the global artificial intelligence race. His company is the world’s leading producer of advanced semiconductor chips, making Nvidia a critical part of U.S. national security and a sought-after partner of China. Huang himself is among the world’s wealthiest people, with an estimated net worth of around $162 billion prior to his recent scandal. Over the past two years, Huang has also become a close friend of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration has made advancing AI a cornerstone of its agenda. Notably, Huang successfully petitioned the White House last December to relax some restrictions on Nvidia sales to China in exchange for the U.S. government receiving a 25 percent cut of the profits. But in just two weeks, Huang’s public image has collapsed. Late last month, the New York Times reported that a Chinese businesswoman believed to be spying for Beijing was in a “close relationship” with Huang. The alleged spy, Alice Huang, was an executive at a Singapore-based data center company, Megaspeed, which the U.S. Commerce Department began suspecting in 2024 of helping China to smuggle in Nvidia’s restricted AI chips. Nvidia shares plummeted in the wake of the news, even as Beijing denied involvement. Huang admitted to the affair in an email to Nvidia’s 42,000-plus employees on Sunday. However, the scandal didn’t end there. On Wednesday, the Times reported that Huang had had a separate affair with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of healthcare. That relationship may have violated the company’s code of conduct. Huang has not publicly acknowledged the second affair. The dual allegations appear to have been enough to force Huang to step down. Huang has reportedly agreed to testify before Congress ahead of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving over the espionage scandal. And Nvidia finance chief Colette Kress has agreed to serve as interim CEO until a replacement is named. Nvidia’s change in leadership, though, has yet to assuage global markets. Company shares plunged as much as 14 percent when trading opened on Thursday, extending a crisis that has already wiped out more than $1 trillion from Nvidia’s market value. Some initial gains were made later in the day but not enough to reverse the damage. Nvidia’s board has said there is “no reason to believe” that Huang’s actions compromised U.S. national security or company secrets, but it has launched an independent investigation. And on Thursday, Megaspeed CEO Tan Yong Pong issued a statement saying that the company takes its obligation to comply with U.S. export control laws “extremely seriously” and will work “constructively and transparently with the U.S. government.” Trump, meanwhile, praised Huang on Thursday, writing on Truth Social that he had done a “fantastic job” with Nvidia. Today’s Most Read What a Hormuz Endgame Could Actually Look Like by Keith Johnson The Experts Are Taking Their Revenge Again by David Milne Did China Play Jensen Huang? by James Palmer What We’re Following A seat at the table. Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to allow European representatives to join the next round of direct Ukraine peace talks. Giving Europe a seat at the table marks a big win for Kyiv and Washington, which have both pushed for greater European involvement in negotiations. However, the concession could also spell trouble for future talks, as Moscow remains largely at odds with its European counterparts. “We would very much like you, gentlemen, and the U.S. administration as a whole to work with your European allies so that they can finally make up their minds as to what they want: peace or war in Ukraine,” Putin told U.S. special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow on Thursday. At the same time, the Russian leader warned that any push for the deployment of European troops to Ukraine after a peace deal is inked would trigger renewed fighting. Witkoff and Kushner will now head to Dublin for similar talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The potential of European involvement in the peace process will almost certainly be on the agenda, but Zelensky is also likely to bring up new reports of Starlink disruptions in Ukraine. Zelensky on Thursday accused the U.S.-based company of placing speed restrictions on its Starshield military-grade services, affecting how its drone interceptors operate. The last time that such limits were detected, Zelensky resumed Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries in direct opposition to Trump’s wishes. Kyiv and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had both accused the Trump administration of orchestrating that incident, which the White House denied. Academic scandal. Indonesian Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka submitted his resignation to parliament on Thursday in the wake of a scandal over his academic credentials. It is unclear when his departure will take effect; however, experts expect the incident to deliver another blow to the tenuous alliance between former President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and current President Prabowo Subianto. Calls for Gibran’s impeachment first intensified last month, when the country’s Constitutional Court found that the vice president did not possess the necessary credentials to hold power. In Indonesia, lawmakers must have a high school diploma to run for office. Gibran claimed to have finished grade 12 at a school in Australia, but the court ruled that the degree was not equivalent to an Indonesian senior high school certificate. Two weeks later, the country’s Supreme Court backed that ruling by revoking Gibran’s equivalency document. Gibran was elected in 2024 largely as a symbol of the precarious truce between his father, Jokowi, and Prabowo. His removal could therefore further fracture that fragile alliance. Just last week, Indonesian authorities detained three senior police officials suspected of wiretapping the president and dozens of other prominent figures. Among those arrested was Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who was a known loyalist of Jokowi. Gaza hospital attack. An Israeli airstrike targeted the main hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis overnight on Thursday, killing at least six people, including a teenager, and injuring at least 20 others. Locals reported two missiles damaging a building containing surgical wards at Nasser Hospital. The attack marked the latest violation of the region’s precarious Gaza cease-fire, which took effect in October 2025. According to Israel’s military, the hospital strike was part of an operation targeting Muhammad Abu Ismail, whom Israeli forces described as the “commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade.” Israel claimed that Abu Ismail had turned Nasser Hospital into his headquarters and was using the facility as a base of operations. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilian infrastructure as human shields. The militant group has denied doing so. Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, Israeli troops have attacked Nasser Hospital at least seven times, according to hospital officials. The use of medical centers for military purposes and the targeting of such sites are both considered violations of international law. “Gaza’s health facilities are lifelines for its ​people,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X on Thursday. “They must be protected. They must never be militarized or attacked.” Odds and Ends The Finnish Embassy in Canberra temporarily closed its doors on Tuesday for a one-day internal planning and staff sauna event. However, what was meant to be a routine disruption instead appeared to upend the internet, with a deluge of memes jokingly bemoaning the closure. Local swimming pools offered their services for those suffering, a Dutch esports league complained about the lockout, and even American Airlines unveiled a snap sale on flights to Europe for emotional support. The embassy, meanwhile, took the public’s outcry in stride. “After 24 harrowing hours, international expressions of grief and an unprecedented outpouring of solidarity, the Embassy of Finland in Canberra has officially reopened,” the facility posted on social media on Wednesday, marking the event with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.