Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of Nvidia following disclosures of multiple alleged romantic relationships, including one with a businesswoman described as an alleged asset of China’s Ministry of State Security. The departure stunned both Nvidia and the wider AI industry, according to two current and three former Nvidia employees who spoke anonymously to protect their relationships at the company. The news of the first affair initially drew a subdued reaction in Silicon Valley, including within Nvidia itself.
Employees had expected the board to investigate and act, but few believed Huang would actually leave. Nvidia’s workforce of roughly 60,000 is known for extreme loyalty, with a global turnover rate reportedly among the lowest in tech; workers describe the culture as having “green in your blood” or being “green-pilled.” Huang founded the company and led it for 33 years, and employees valued that he kept layoffs rare and bureaucracy limited. One employee described the shift from admiration to disillusionment as abrupt and hard to process, while a former employee argued that affairs alone should not have ended his tenure and that something more sinister must have been involved.
Investors and peers largely stood by Huang even after his ouster. Venture capitalist Antonio Gracias wrote on X that one mistake does not erase a lifetime of leadership and contribution in building NVDA, using the company’s ticker symbol. Sarah Guo, also a venture capitalist, wrote on X after the resignation and a few hours before a Reuters report that a founder who spent 30 years building such a unique company capably has earned the presumption that he should keep leading it. Before the additional allegations surfaced, multiple industry executives told WIRED that Huang is irreplaceable and that his biggest error, beyond the relationship with Alice Huang, was admitting the affair in writing to the entire company.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Huang had an extramarital affair with a vice president at Nvidia, and Reuters revealed Thursday a second intimate relationship with an employee. Authorities and Nvidia’s board have not formally accused Huang of wrongdoing in his interactions with Alice Huang, and China has denied she is a spy. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the FBI is looking into it. Nvidia’s board has said it does not believe Huang compromised any secrets but has hired the law firm Wachtell Lipton to investigate.
Some corners of Nvidia had already been whispering about the relationship with Alice Huang; one venture capitalist, who declined to be named, recalled a recent dinner where an Nvidia executive said there had been rumors about Jensen’s romantic relationship with a young Asian woman. On Monday, that venture capitalist put the chance Huang would lose his job at the top of the world’s most valuable company at less than 10 percent, predicting the wind would blow over.
The central anxiety in Silicon Valley is that instability at Nvidia could burst an AI bubble, though analysts are not certain. The chief executive of one AI company, speaking anonymously to avoid affecting business relationships, said Nvidia’s recent bankrolling of AI startups and purchases of companies such as model-hosting provider Hugging Face have helped prop up demand for chips, and that a new professional CEO won’t do any of that, substantially raising systemic risk for the AI trade. Nvidia shares in recent days have sunk to their lowest point in more than a year, and the company reports its latest quarterly earnings next week. Inside Nvidia, meetings, projects, and the company’s aggressive culture are pressing ahead with what remains of Huang’s vision.
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