Jensen Huang resigned as CEO of Nvidia on Thursday following revelations that his affair with a tech executive and alleged Chinese spy wasn’t his only extramarital relationship. The decision followed allegations on Wednesday that he had also slept with a separate executive at Nvidia in a bombshell New York Times report.
In a press release Thursday morning, Nvidia announced that Huang had resigned as president, CEO, and a member of the company’s board, effective immediately. Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer since 2013, will serve as interim CEO while retaining her CFO duties. The board said it would consider both internal and external candidates for a permanent replacement. Nvidia also named longtime board member Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever board chair. The company did not address the scandals surrounding Huang’s departure, instead thanking him for his contributions and insisting that its operations would continue without interruption.
Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993, had an affair with Alice Huang, who was listed as a managing director of the Singapore-based Megaspeed International until 2023. U.S. officials reportedly believe she is a spy for the Ministry of State Security, the Chinese government’s principal foreign intelligence service, and a number of reports indicate she continued in a role at Megaspeed after that, the nature and timeline of which remains hazy. The embattled Nvidia CEO publicly apologized for having the affair, but didn’t immediately resign.
After several news outlets dug into the story of Alice Huang, including allegations that she was providing sanctioned AI tech to Chinese entities, Nvidia’s board released a statement Nov. 8 insisting that there was “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised.” However, the board said it would be launching an investigation into the matter.
Note that at the time, the CEO admitted he had been unfaithful to his wife, but never mentioned how many extramarital partners.
The United States barred Nvidia’s most powerful chips from being exported to China in an effort to stay ahead in the AI race. Exemptions were made—approved by President Trump and the Commerce Department—for the company to sell its less advanced H200 chips to select Chinese firms. But a recent New York Times investigation found that some of the businesses didn’t even exist.
News of a second affair broke Wednesday, when the Times reported that Jensen Huang had been captured “being affectionate” with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, at a Nvidia conference in March 2026. A bystander reportedly captured intimacy between Huang and Powell with a cell phone and was confronted by the Nvidia CEO’s security team. The bystander was presented with a non-disclosure agreement, though it’s unclear if one was ever signed.
Jensen Huang shaped the AI revolution and developed relationships with world leaders over the years as he sold his highly coveted technology to Western democracies. Huang had become especially chummy with President Donald Trump, who had reportedly been first advised of the affair and a potential link to Chinese intelligence in 2025 and then again in May of this year. Trump reportedly barely cared and took no known actions in response.
It doesn’t seem like he even bothered to warn Nvidia’s now-former CEO. At a White House press briefing, Trump claimed that he asked Jensen whether he knew she was a spy after news of the first scandal broke. Jensen replied, “I had no idea,” according to Trump.
Nvidia donated at least $26 million to President Trump’s projects, including $25 million for the ballroom he’s building in the now-demolished East Wing of the White House. Another $1 million was donated to Trump’s inaugural fund. Nvidia tried to keep its ballroom donation anonymous, according to the Washington Post.
Reporting by Axios and The New York Times this week revealed squabbles within the White House over what to do about the sex scandal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly confronted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the Situation Room of the White House last Thursday on why Megaspeed had not been added to the Commerce Department’s entity list for blacklisted companies. Lutnick had been dragging his feet, supposedly fearful of starting a trade war with China.
According to CNN, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons wrote a letter to Trump officials asking them to preserve Nvidia documents for a potential investigation—a possible harbinger of political trouble for Nvidia, the ex-CEO, and the White House, given that Democrats recently won midterm elections by historic margins on agendas that were often actively hostile to not just Trump but AI companies and Big Tech executives viewed as his allies. In about two months, the Democrats will take control of the House and Senate and their extensive investigative powers.
Jensen Huang faced growing pressure to resign as the week wore on, with at least three Republican politicians calling for his ouster. But it’s unclear what Nvidia’s future will look like without its high-profile founder. He had developed a certain cool-nerd persona—complete with a leather jacket—that resonated with many middle-aged men on Wall Street, even if it fell flat with other demographics. Many financial analysts have said they can’t imagine the company’s future without him.
Jensen Huang was worth $154.7 billion as of a Forbes analysis last updated on Nov. 9, when his wealth had already taken a significant hit from the honeypot scandal. It’s doubtless fallen further due to the newer scandal.
Nvidia said in its press release that it will report earnings on Tuesday afternoon as previously scheduled.
