Inside Jensen Huang’s last hours as Nvidia CEO

At the end, Jensen Huang looked broken and shattered, his legendary energy spent.After weeks of denying the allegations of infidelity and fighting to keep his job as Nvidia’s chief executive, he surrendered unconditionally on Nov 12.Huang’s usual take-charge demeanour had evaporated, said a person familiar with the situation, and he had started using phrases like “whatever” and “I don’t care”. For the decades he spent building Nvidia into a multitrillion-dollar AI chip behemoth, Huang was famous for his attention to the tiniest of details, from chip architecture to the compensation packages of even the most junior employees.Now, in the eyes of the people in the room, he had given up. It was a stunningly quick fall for a billionaire and tech titan who, two weeks ago, was the face of artificial intelligence globally.With his directness and vigour, he had charmed US President Donald Trump, shaped global tech policy and drawn adoring crowds on his papal-style international tours. It is hard to imagine the current AI boom happening without Huang, his company and their chips, and it is hard to imagine what it will look like after his fall.As Harvey Jones, chair of the company’s board of directors, wrote in an e-mail to staff after Huang’s ouster: “Jensen’s contributions to Nvidia are profound. Nvidia is one of the most consequential technology companies in the world.”Huang could not be reached for comment. When the news broke in late October that Huang had close ties with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy, it looked as though he would prevail.The board of directors, dominated by long-time investors, business partners and friends of Huang, was reluctant to act on the reports or even publicly comment on them.Most of the news coverage tiptoed around the exact nature of the CEO’s relationship with Alice Huang, the suspected spy.Huang denied to friends and colleagues that he had been unfaithful to his wife, and had been denying it since late 2025 when questioned internally.In one of his last interviews as CEO, Huang told Bloomberg News that his relationship with Alice Huang was typical of those with Chinese customers and executives.“It was all completely normal and not unusual,” he said. A turning point came on Nov 6, when a Financial Times story cited US officials saying that the relationship had been a romantic one.Soon after, Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter went to Huang’s house to confront him, and Huang confessed.At that point, most board members still did not want to take a public stance, but Teter, secretary of the board, told them they had to act.The board announced that it would investigate the allegations. A prominent law firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, would lead the inquiry.On Nov 8, Huang e-mailed the company, admitting to the affair, apologising to his family and vowing to “cooperate fully” with the board’s investigation.As the scandal ballooned, there was evidence that it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, drawing Huang’s attention away from his extensive duties at the company.As part of Nvidia’s idiosyncratic organisational chart, Huang had around 60 executives at the company who reported to him, a small army by normal management standards.The whole company had to file e-mails with their top five priorities, which Huang used to check that everyone was working on what he considered most important.Normally, he responded to them immediately at all hours of the day and night. In recent days, the response times had grown longer. On Nov 11, The New York Times reported that Huang was also having an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice-president of health care.This time, the board acted quickly. Directors assembled remotely on Nov 11, and the meeting lasted late into the night.In the end, Huang was given no choice but to resign, ending his association with the company completely.The next morning on Nov 12, the board announced chief financial officer Colette Kress would step in as interim CEO. She was quick to try and reassure rattled employees.“I believe deeply in this company and in its future,” Kress wrote in an e-mail reviewed by Bloomberg.“More than anything, I believe in each of you, in our customers and partners and in the vital role we play every day in the global economy. The board, staff and I recognise that this has been an extraordinarily difficult period, and I want you to know how grateful we are for your resilience, professionalism and continued dedication. Thank you.”She pledged to hold an all-hands meeting on Nov 18.A day earlier, Nvidia is due to report results and disclose what Wall Street analysts predict will be a near doubling of quarterly sales growth.Now, the board faces the difficult challenge of replacing Huang.Some executives considered likely to end up on the shortlist are Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su and Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas.It is hard to imagine anyone filling all his roles – technologist, executive, marketer, lobbyist, mascot – and the company never bothered to create a traditional succession plan.For better or worse, Nvidia will begin to look more like a regular company going forward, managed in a more regular way. As for Huang himself, he will not be able to retreat from public life, even if he wants to.In the coming weeks, he is expected to testify before the US Congress, where politicians will ask him about his relationship with Alice Huang and whether it might have put some of the secrets of Nvidia’s state-of-the-art chips at risk.According to people who have spoken with him in recent days, Huang has already taken a penitent turn, castigating himself as a “piece of s***”.He claims not to care what happens to himself at this point.His main concern, he says, is his wife, and not “ruining the lives” of the multiple women now romantically linked to him in the public imagination. BLOOMBERG