Nvidia is preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang, WSJ reports

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Nvidia's board is preparing to remove CEO Jensen Huang following allegations of two extramarital affairs, including one with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. The board plans to meet as soon as Wednesday to decide his fate, the report stated. Earlier, the New York Times revealed that Huang had an affair with Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, Kimberly Powell.

Huang has acknowledged being unfaithful to his wife, prompting an investigation by the board into whether he was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. This comes days after the controversy escalated, with lawmakers, investors, and the board scrutinizing Huang's conduct and his relationship with Alice Huang, a woman reportedly involved in facilitating shipments of Nvidia chips to Chinese firms.

Nvidia's shares dropped around 8% in after-hours trading, following a loss of over $300 billion in market value since the affair with Alice Huang became public. Huang's potential departure would leave a leadership vacuum at the $4 trillion company, which is central to the US-China AI supremacy race, given its dominance in chips used for training AI models and powering services like OpenAI's ChatGPT.