🖥️ Nvidia's Jensen Huang resigns: what it means for the chip giant
The co-founder who led Nvidia for three decades stepped down after scandals over his personal relationships, and chief financial officer Colette Kress is now interim CEO.
The mystery
Nvidia makes most of the chips that train and run today's most advanced AI. Its boss, Jensen Huang, was one of the most powerful people in technology with close ties to Donald Trump's White House. Why did he leave, and why did the company's value drop so fast?
The answer
Huang, 63, resigned after a board meeting, after it emerged that he had been in a relationship with a woman suspected of working for Chinese intelligence, and then reports of another relationship with a senior Nvidia employee. The first relationship sparked inquiries by the FBI, the US Congress and Nvidia itself, because the US limits sales of advanced AI chips to China over military and security fears. The woman at the centre of the reports, Alice Huang, used to be an executive at Megaspeed, Nvidia's main partner in Southeast Asia, which has been investigated over whether Chinese firms got access to its large stock of Nvidia chips. Shares fell more than 10% when trading opened and the company's worth slipped under $4 trillion, a level it had stayed above since 2025, before recovering part of the loss. The company also named its first-ever board chair, venture investor Harvey C Jones. Nvidia reports quarterly results next Tuesday.
Now think about this
Can a company whose chips power most of the AI world keep its lead without the founder who built it?
