Nvidia Chief Jensen Huang Resigns Amid Spy Scandal and Board Meeting

Jensen Huang has resigned as president, CEO, and board member of Nvidia effective immediately on Thursday. The sudden departure follows reports that he had a romantic relationship with a Chinese businesswoman whom US authorities suspect of working as a spy for Beijing. The board of directors convened on Wednesday to discuss his potential removal, a source familiar with the matter indicated. This meeting came after earlier reports revealed that the former CEO also had an extramarital affair with a senior executive who reported directly to him.

The exit of the long-time leader plunges the $4 trillion company into a period of significant uncertainty. Investors are now concerned about the disruption to the artificial intelligence ecosystem that Huang helped build by reinvesting Nvidia’s substantial cash reserves into cloud providers, suppliers, and major research labs. Market sentiment toward AI stocks has already been fragile, driven by growing doubts about whether the AI boom will yield returns, given the soaring cash burn and rising debt at traditionally profitable tech giants.

Huang’s departure may also have broader implications for US chip export policies. He had previously advocated for maintaining access to the Chinese market and maintained close ties with US President Donald Trump. On Sunday, Trump stated that Huang had done an amazing job for the country. The President added that the Nvidia chief had told him he was unaware that the Chinese woman he was involved with was a suspected spy.

Much of the background regarding Alice Huang, the woman at the center of the scandal, remains unconfirmed, though several details have emerged in recent days. The Chinese government has denied that Huang was a spy, describing the allegations as purely unsubstantiated and aimed at smearing China. According to a Chinese private equity database and a social media post by Shanghai Hexi Investment Management, Huang began her career as a journalist at state broadcasters Hunan TV and CCTV before transitioning to the finance sector, as reported by The Washington Post on Thursday.

Despite these claims, there is currently no public record of Alice Huang working at either of the mentioned broadcasters. Bai Jie, a former news anchor in China with over 2 million followers on Weibo, said on Monday that she had known Alice Huang when they were both journalists. Bai described her as formidable at the time. However, the post was deleted hours later, and Bai denied making the statement before her account was banned shortly afterward.

Alice Huang served as deputy general manager at the private equity firm Shanghai Hexi during the 2010s and was also listed as a legal representative for the tech firm Shanghai Longteng. When reporters from The Washington Post called the publicly listed phone numbers for Shanghai Longteng, they were informed that they had dialed the wrong number.

In 2023, Alice Huang joined Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based subsidiary of a Chinese gaming company. The firm later spun off from its parent organization and pivoted to providing computing power to clients using data centers powered by Nvidia chips. It became one of the largest buyers of Nvidia hardware in Southeast Asia. Megaspeed’s rapid success, with assets growing from $33 million in 2023 to $3 billion in 2024, fueled suspicions that the company was routing Nvidia chips to China in violation of US export controls, according to The Washington Post.

Citing US intelligence reports, The Washington Post wrote that Huang was recruited by the Ministry of State Security, Beijing’s primary spy agency, at some point. The timing of her recruitment and the start of her romantic relationship with Jensen Huang remains unclear. According to Bloomberg, the suspected spy has returned to Beijing, though the specific date and reason for her travel to the capital are still unknown.