From Decrypt · By Decrypt Staff
In brief
Jensen Huang resigned Thursday as Nvidia’s CEO after 33 years, following reports of three extramarital affairs—one involving an executive U.S. intelligence reportedly suspected of China ties.
Nvidia’s stock plunged over 14% before recovering to close down ~4.6%; tech, AI and crypto founders called the ouster a “massive mistake,” while 1,600-plus employee comments pushed to reinstate him.
The board has reportedly approached Arm CEO Rene Haas as a successor; the turmoil matters for crypto given Nvidia’s grip on AI data-center infrastructure, with earnings due Nov. 17.
In the span of a few days, the most powerful executive in artificial intelligence went from untouchable to unemployed.
Jensen Huang, who built Nvidia from a graphics-card maker into the roughly $4 trillion engine of the AI boom, resigned Thursday after 33 years, felled not by a bad earnings report but by a scandal with the texture of a spy thriller.
Here’s how a defining week for AI, and by extension crypto, unfolded.
PredictEconomyNVDA Lows in November
160-%YesNo168-%YesNo176-%YesNo184-%YesNo192-%YesNo+2 more outcomes+1 more outcomesNEW$0.00 volumeCloses: Dec 1, 2026, 04:59 UTCCloses: Dec 1, 2026, 04:59 UTCThe crisis began with reports that Huang had grown close to Alice Huang (no relation), an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, one of Nvidia’s largest Southeast Asian customers, whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly suspected of gathering information for Beijing.
For a company at the center of the U.S.-China chip fight and a looming debate over tighter export controls, the national-security overtones were impossible to ignore. Nvidia’s board opened an independent investigation into whether Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence operation, though it said it had no reason to believe company secrets or national security were compromised.
On Nov. 8, Huang apologized for being “unfaithful” to his wife, acknowledging the relationship.
Jensen Huang’s exit
What might have been a single lapse quickly snowballed. The New York Times reported a second affair, with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, who reported to Huang.
By Thursday, Huang was out as president, CEO and board member. Chief financial officer Colette Kress was named interim CEO, and longtime director Harvey Jones took over as board chair. The abruptness stunned an industry accustomed to treating Huang as synonymous with Nvidia itself.
Then, a day after his resignation, Reuters reported a third relationship, an “intimate” one with a second unnamed Nvidia employee, citing two people familiar with the matter. Reuters did not identify her, and Nvidia declined to comment. Huang has acknowledged only the Alice Huang affair, deflecting when the Times asked about Powell.