- His board setup is ... odd. He isn't Chairman of the Board (a role over 50% of Fortune 100 CEOs apparently hold). He seems to be responsible for Nvidia having a wierdly more egalitarian structure (all directors including him, are equal, with a designated lead independent director)

- His compensation (~$35M, primarily stock) is ... not up there with other tech CEOs

- He doesn't seem to have ever pushed for super-voting rights (he only has like ~3.5% of the company), but I guess that's hard to change once you IPO

I kinda wonder if this ends with him taking a month off, spending 12-18 months transitioning to a successor and ending as the chairman of the board or some such. He really does seem vital to the company (and thus the stock price).

Without Jensen Huang's vision, Nvidia might have remained primarily a graphics chip maker, and the deep learning revolution would not have arrived when it did. Long before deep neural networks took off, Huang backed the use of Nvidia GPUs for scientific and general-purpose computing, including the development of CUDA. In 2012, Krizhevsky, Sutskever, and Hinton used Nvidia GPUs and CUDA to train AlexNet, whose breakthrough performance helped ignite the modern deep learning boom. Nvidia's investment in programmable GPUs helped make that breakthrough possible.

The critical vision was that GPUs could become a platform for computing beyond graphics—and that Nvidia should invest in making them programmable before a large market for that use existed.

The board should punish Huang without punishing the industry and the nation. For example by cutting his salary and stock to 0 for 2 years.

Why not just sell to not-sanctioned entities, ensure compliance to the best of your abilities and otherwise keep your head down? Again, wasn't like they struggled to find buyers for their chips.

Considering Megaspeed, I now see this in a very different light. Him cheating is personal and I wish the affected members of any family of a cheater the best, but not relevant for us outsiders.

Being honey trapped very bad securities wise, but he'd be a victim (and evidence for why we shouldn't discount Mistral in the frontier lab race [1]). If sanctions avoidance went all the way to the top, that is hard to negate even for a board that is interested in keeping him. At that stage he was neither honey trapped nor "merely horny"...

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3xQaf7BFI

[1] https://time.com/archive/7146565/hollandes-popularity-goes-u...

[1] https://www.facebook.com/ChinainAus/videos/nvidia-ceo-jensen...

To me, he had the good fortune of standing in the right place at the right time. He is no Steve Jobs, who almost single-handedly started the PC revolution and the iPhone revolution. This is not to deny his brilliance and business acumen, but I think too many people overstate his contribution to both the company and the United States. Of course I could be wrong so I welcome correction or alternative viewpoints.

Speaking of the US, Jensen has indeed become a liability. A compromised CEO is, of course, a liability to a national asset, and a politically toxic one at that. Nvidia is a business with sensitive political ties now. It can't afford to appear compromised in the eyes of Washington. Therefore, Nvidia's stakeholders must let Jensen go; otherwise, it will affect the company as a whole.

I think the real story is not the affair, which was already reported in asian media in 2024, but what specific catalyst broke that protective shield and made continued containment untenable.

Dual-class share structures have become the defacto standard for founder led companies, giving founders disproportionate (even majority) voting power.

Someone like Zuckerberg effectively controls the board and would be extraordinarily difficult to oust against his wishes (absent some exceptional legal intervention or a decision to step aside)

At the time I didn't think it would happen because of impact on Nvidia's stock price, but at that point we didn't know about his second affair - with Kimberly Powell.

I'd suggest this latest revelation makes his position untenable, especially if the board found out about the second affair via a source other than Huang himself. He should have spilled the beans on that when the first affair came out, not that it would necessarily have saved him, but withholding the information - if that's what he did - should condemn him. It's another serious lapse in judgement and a failure of integrity that is not befitting of one of the most powerful corporate leaders on earth.

Goodness knows how his wife is feeling at this point. Certainly makes his apology from a couple of days back ring rather hollow.

EDIT: The fact that someone like Jensen Huang - who I'd previously considered to be an incredibly smart guy as opposed to a nitwit - can somehow completely implode his life in almost the most ridiculous way imaginable does give me some hope that at least some of the troublemaker ne'er do wells that have wielded so much power over us all over the past decade or so might also experience some just desserts in the not too distant future.

He's out as CEO but he'll continue to be a force at Nvidia. If the new CEO is smart, he'll keep him in the company, but it will be hard since Huang will be seen as the company's leader and it will be very hard for Huang to act any other way.

I do think that "eventually" AI will be open-(source, weight, something) and most people will run at least some of their workload on their own hardware; but his leaving might delay that day considerably.

He's had the job since before GTA 1 started development.

Should the board replace him or not?

It's easy to judge when you have no skin in the game. What would you think if you did?

Any Nvidia employees out there?

I even wonder whether some elements within the Chinese government has a hand in it -- not (only) the mistress part but the ousting part.

I’m not deep into this story, but my initial reaction is that marital infidelity doesn’t seem like a strong reason to oust him, aside from him possibly being compromised by an international spy. Haven’t other successful leaders continued to lead after having their affairs exposed?

(And no, I don’t believe what he did is morally excusable for the record.)

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NVDA/

Ousting him is pretty much the worst case scenario for the company.

Second, yeah long term this might set Nvidia back, but are we going to say that not only are there companies which are too big to fail, but now individuals can be too? They can violate international trade sanctions and get scott free because it might harm their company? What CEO wouldn’t then be incentivized against setting up a succession plan? Why wouldn’t adversarial governments target critical CEOs even more, knowing they are effectively untouchable?

Jensen objectively fucked up royally. I saw someone describe him as a victim in all of this. I’m sorry but I don’t see how it’s unreasonable to hold CEO’s in these key positions to very high standards. They’re rewarded with extraordinary wealth and influence, yet some seem eager to excuse them from the accountability that should come with that power.

Did he circumvent export restrictions?

If not, replacing him would be a mistake for Nvidia. I also fear that it would endanger open weight models in America.

I do wonder if Megaspeed and other shell companies have been monitored for over a year by the Feds where they broke export rules, failed to report to the Govt with the knowledge of several in the Administration... Everyone was making money on the side by allowing Jensen, Megaspeed and others profit off of bypassing export controls. Just recently a shipment of GPUs randomly disappeared as well.

If this all turns out to be true then removing him is a lot stronger than it seems and maybe in the long run fixing the bus factor problem will have been a good change.

Or, since nVidia is the central bank of the AI bubble, forcing him out kicks off a chain reaction that pops the bubble.

The thing is, this is just what's been reported. There's almost certainly more going on if 2 affairs are public disclosure. If there is a sexual harassment angle here as well, he's toast.

That's a tautology, of course. And the board should have been doing its job handling the key man in question

It's most obvious in hindsight, obviously. Across the history of such governance debacles.

I hope he's allowed to do so. He now knows how not to get trapped into a tactically targeted honeypot, he knows the ins and outs of a GPU fab business plus he has all the connections.

This minus all the cruft and legacy overhead of a company as old as Nvidia. I'm now hoping he gets fired.

It all unwound a few months later, much to my chagrin (and my lost stock options, obviously).

Recall that most bubbles do not pop due to one, key material cause. Instead, they pop due to adjacent troubles that, in turn, lead to cascading effects.

That was true of:

- LTCM failure (1998; Thailand and other SE Asian countries defaulted);

- 2000 market crash (dot-coms crash, then telecom crash of 2001);

- 2008-2010 financial crisis (mortgage backed securities); ... and so many others before these.

It's entirely possible that NVDA, despite earning $$$$, could unwind the circular funding within the ecosystem (the very crux of telecom market crash of 2001)

TPUs and AWS's Trainium seem to be at least in the ballpark of being competitive but does that matter at all?

Did he know she was a spy?

Did he give her any secrets?

Did he break up with her after finding out she's a spy?

Was she trained as a spy and sent to entrap him specifically? Or did she form a relationship with him, then get told by the Chinese Communist Party "Xi wants you to steal him some secrets from your boyfriend. This is an offer you can't refuse; spy for us or your family in China will be beaten, jailed or worse"?

Is he a victim or an asset? Is she a willing patriotic spy for China, or a victim of blackmail from the Chinese Communist Party? Has she been arrested as a spy, or did she make it to the Chinese embassy before the story broke?

My feeling is he shouldn't be ousted if he took the honey but didn't fall for the trap. OTOH if he passed her company secrets, that's presumably a fireable offense for anyone lower on the totem pole; it's only fair for a CEO to get fired for the same.

Honeytrap.

Reveal the information to a trusted journalist.

Destroy Huang's credibility.

Force his resignation.

Damage Nvidia.

China moves further in the AI game.

Game set and match. Sounds like this might have been China's real goal.

Hopefully this teaches the market to migrate away from proprietary CUDA and NVIDIA and their proprietary drivers.

https://x.com/ChinaSelect/status/2120253050845593723

There's a different angle here worth listening to: https://youtu.be/IC3Kh40dEQY

It's often the Board of Directors that goes and the CEO retains control in the end.

2, China isolating Taiwan with an ongoing military drill https://www.reuters.com/world/china/taiwan-says-china-is-con... https://maritime-executive.com/article/analysis-china-s-nava...

3, Trump meeting Xi next week on the 18th https://www.euronews.com/2026/11/09/donald-trump-plans-to-me...

He knowingly helped advance China’s AI ambitions against the direction of congress. He got caught selling 7.5 Billion dollars of restricted chips to china.

Also he cheated on his wife with some Chinese woman, which is a totally separate and unrelated fuck up.

If you seriously think he got tricked by some random woman who batted her eyes, you are out of your mind. He founded the fucking company, he isn’t some clueless executive. He’s also not senile and he doesn’t have dementia. This is the only viable excuse for him to use, but it’s complete bullshit.

Think about it: He betrayed his longtime wife, who by all accounts supported him from the beginning. He betrayed his company and its shareholders. And he betrayed his country (BOTH of his countries?) who specifically forbid the chips to be sold to china. He’s fucked

Obviously, the affairs are a very serious issue, but the investigation needs to determine whether there were any security conflict of interest breaches

Let’s be clear: any abuse of power involving related-party relationships is wrong. Jensen should not get a “free pass” just because he’s Jensen. This is very serious.

Jensen’s leadership of the broader company is unparalleled, and replacing him would be nearly impossible. That step should only be taken when it’s extremely clear there is no other option. Even if the board does replace him, that brings significant risk, not just to NVIDIA but to all the other businesses connected to it. I hope a warning shot across the bow is enough for him to clean things up so everyone can get back to focusing on the work.

As for which way the board rules, the details are all that matter. When boards react emotionally, before a thorough investigation and before they have the full picture, they make bad decisions. They shouldn’t rush. They should investigate and dig into every detail.

Then make a decision. These decisions will carry enormous weight.

None of us really know the details. NVIDIA board: do your job and take it very seriously. Deliberately measure three times, cut once. Don’t spectate. The public likes/wants Hollywood drama, but what we really need is good corporate governance.

> During the conference, Nvidia executives were at a nearby hotel for meetings. Mr. Huang and Ms. Powell were seen being affectionate at the hotel. One bystander captured the interaction on their phone, three people briefed on the incident said.

> Mr. Huang’s security witnessed the bystander with their phone and sequestered them, the people said. They made the person an offer to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Well, at least there will be one way to make money after AI takes my job...

Jokes aside, I would expect we will soon learn there is more. Given that Nvidia was vouching for Megaspeed while exporting those chips, I still think there's a reasonable chance Jensen ends up in jail over this. Not large, but possible.

Also to all the people saying how terrible this will be, would you really want someone running your company who can't keep his word to his wife? Maybe it is a quaint idea in 2026 but I think people who break their word shouldn't be trusted, particularly to be in positions of power.

Looks like both Nvidia GPUs and Nvidia CEO have Single Instruction Multiple Threads (SIMT) architecture.

Depending on how Jensen takes it, this could be the catalyst to steer AI in a new direction. Companies will line up to scoop him up, if not fight each other to get him. He is the head of the most valuable company, he has the tightest connection to the US government, it won't take a minute before Mudita* becomes a new company being fast-tracked to the top.

* Opposite of Envy (nvidia)

I don't see anyone accusing China of setting up such a trap. China always denies ofc, though all these scummy things eventaully comes out to be true, and by then everyone forgets.

What is it about a Jensen.

Was anything stolen?

Is he like a Steve Jobs?

As soon as they baited Huang, it was all win-win for them. China would be able to either get access to secrets and/or chips they wouldn't have before, or they'd decapitate one of the most important companies in the U.S. The public outcry to this is exactly as planned.

Truly ridiculous and anyone with their pitchforks out needs to get a clue.

I mean, that's acceptable these days isn't it?

But there's no real competitors still? Even for the medium term?

SMH

Irattional things continue to be irrational i guess

The US taxpayer wins.

/s

From an HR and legal perspective, if Alice was a spy, Jensen was arguably the targeted 'victim' of a foreign intelligence operation. While it was certainly very dumb and negligent, it may not have been a policy violation or may only have been a violation of company policies like mishandling confidential information or not following IT security policies. Those aren't usually "Fire the CEO Now" things, while slamming the sheets with a direct report absolutely requires some kind of immediate action.

The real question is who wants Jensen gone? Because the first leak was clearly intentional and reportedly placed by 'senior White House sources', citing a confidential NSC report. Now the second leak of the inappropriate affair happens immediately after. This was a designed sequence. Both of the underlying events are several months old. Given the facts, I think the most likely source is 'China Trade/AI Hawks' in the White House (possibly the NSC). The reasoning being that Jensen has generally been trying to minimize restrictions on selling AI to China (which is, arguably, part of his job).

I don't agree with everything David Sachs says on the All in Podcast, but it looks like it's about political control over all frontier AI models from democrats.

moralism blocking progress once again

I'm scared about how this in turn shapes society.

I expect shit show funnier than when OpenAI tried to put Altman with same result.

NVidia is Jensen's company.

EDIT: Done. https://stateofutopia.com/laws/3/law3.html

Seems like this video and the first affair with the spy was a classic blackmail operation used against him as I said before [0] and Huang likely said no to the wrong person.

It is over.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50417105