The company that makes the chips behind much of the AI we use every day is suddenly looking for a new CEO.
Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and ran it for 33 years, resigned Thursday after reports of two extramarital affairs: one was reportedly with a Nvidia executive who worked for him named Kimberly Powell, the other was with Alice Huang (no relation), a former executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed whom U.S. officials suspect of spying for Beijing.
Before all this, Trump and Huang knew each other pretty well. Huang was already one of Trump’s tech advisers, and Nvidia had been asking the administration to let it sell more AI chips in China. When Trump invited Huang to Beijing at the last minute in May, the executive hopped aboard Air Force One during a fuel stop in Alaska.
When the allegations involving Alice Huang came up at Mar-a-Lago on Oct. 31, reporters asked whether Trump would keep Huang on as a tech adviser. Trump said he’d like to. “I’ve always found Jensen Huang to be very above board,” he told reporters at his Florida resort on Halloween.
A little over a week later, on Nov. 8, reporters asked Trump again about Jensen Huang’s future, this time at Nvidia. Earlier that day, Huang had apologized to employees in a bombshell email admitting he’d been unfaithful to his wife. Nvidia opened an investigation into whether he’d been targeted by foreign intelligence after reports of an affair with suspected spy Alice Huang. The board said at the time it had no reason to believe company secrets or U.S. national security had been compromised. Trump agreed, called Huang “an honorable guy.” Did he think Huang should still run Nvidia? “I think so, oh yeah, sure.”
Trump said he hadn’t spoken to Huang about the allegations when he made those remarks. When he spoke to reporters again on Monday, Nov. 9, he said he’d asked Huang whether he knew about Alice Huang’s alleged ties to Chinese intelligence. Jensen Huang told the president he had no idea, according to Trump. “I really believe him,” the president said.
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That left a question about what Trump himself knew. On Monday, Nov. 9, a reporter asked whether he’d heard about the allegations when he and Huang flew to Beijing in May. “No, I didn’t hear about it then,” Trump said. The Washington Post reported on Thursday, Nov. 12, that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had briefed Trump about the alleged relationship aboard Air Force One on May 12, before Huang boarded in Alaska.
Credit: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images
As new information from the New York Times and Reuters started coming out with reports that Huang had also had an affair with an Nvidia executive who reported to him, it became a little more difficult to maintain trust in the Nvidia boss — Thursday morning, Nvidia announced that Huang had resigned as CEO and stepped down from the company’s board.
Trump wasted little time pitching a replacement only a few hours later. He wrote on Truth Social:
NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend! President DONALD J. TRUMP
For now, Nvidia’s finance chief, Colette Kress, is running the company while the board looks for a permanent CEO.
As for Cook, he still has a job at Apple. He stayed on as executive chairman after stepping down as CEO in September, and neither he nor Apple immediately responded when Reuters asked about Trump’s suggestion.
This is a developing story…
