Nvidia board weighs Jensen Huang’s fate with $600bn at risk

By Grace Kim

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable chip company, saw its shares slide more than 8% in after-hours trading after The Wall Street Journal reported that it was preparing to fire Jensen Huang. Reuters and Agence France-Presse put the potential market-value loss at about $600 billion if those losses held, measured from when Nvidia’s board announced its investigation into his relationship with businesswoman Alice Huang.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse reported that the company’s 11-member board met Wednesday to decide whether to remove Huang as chief executive. The deliberations marked a sharp reversal from Sunday, when the board expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team.

Armina Rosenberg, portfolio manager and co-founder of Minotaur Capital, which holds Nvidia shares, said: “The market is starting to price Nvidia without its founder as the likely outcome, not a tail risk.”

Investors have moved from pricing Huang’s departure as a remote risk to treating it as the likely case.

Can Nvidia’s board remove Huang?

Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of directors can remove Huang “with or without cause.” Nvidia has 11 directors and considers all but Huang independent. The bylaws put Huang’s tenure in the hands of a director majority.

Earlier in the week, Nvidia appointed Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct a “thorough and independent” investigation into the relationship. The firm directed Huang to continue as chief executive while the investigation was underway.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse reported that Huang has no obvious successor and that his exit would leave a leadership vacuum in the U.S.-China AI arms race, which the report described as being at an apex.

The board has a direct mechanism to remove Huang.

What has the investigation covered?

Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993, admitted in a Sunday email to employees that he had an affair and would cooperate with the internal investigation. He denies any knowledge that Alice Huang allegedly worked for the Chinese government.

Nvidia’s board said the same day that it had launched an investigation into reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. Reuters and Agence France-Presse reported that Alice Huang had been accused of being a Chinese spy.

Alice Huang is a businesswoman and head of Singapore-based cloud computing firm Megaspeed. The couple were seen together around the world, dining in restaurants and attending meetings over the past few years, according to Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

The New York Times reported late Wednesday that Huang also had a separate extramarital affair with company employee Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s president of healthcare. Video captured the two being affectionate at a hotel during a company conference in March, the Times reported.

Huang has been married to his wife, Lori, since 1985. Donald Trump backed Huang, saying he had done “an incredible job” and is “an honorable guy.” Elon Musk and other major technology industry figures also threw their support behind the CEO.

The inquiry spans an admitted affair, a second reported affair and an alleged Chinese-government connection while Huang remains CEO.

What did Taiwan know about Alice Huang?

On Thursday, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council minister Chiu Chui-cheng said Alice Huang had visited Taiwan a total of eight times in 2024 and 2025. He was responding to questions about a New York Times report that claimed the U.S. had advised Taiwan as early as 2024 to monitor her movements.

Chiu said there were “no special flags” about Alice Huang at the time, adding that “if we had any of the kind of critical intelligence … we would have definitely flagged her for heightened review.”

Taiwan’s minister said his government had seen no warning signs that would have triggered greater scrutiny.

How does this reach China’s chip-export controls?

Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked the Trump administration late Wednesday to preserve all documents tied to Nvidia’s chip exports to China.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, the senators said: “This incident raises significant concerns about the federal government’s ability to effectively enforce our export controls and protect our national security.”

Reuters and Agence France-Presse described the AI ecosystem’s broad reliance on Nvidia’s advanced chips. Those chips are used to train AI models and to power OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. The same reporting put Nvidia’s market capitalization above $4 trillion and Huang’s estimated net worth at $148 billion, placing him among the world’s richest people.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse reported that Huang personally owns more than 870 million shares, or about 3.6% of Nvidia. Unlike many of his peers at major tech firms, he has dozens of direct reports, an unusual management structure that emphasizes his control over the company.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. For investors and policymakers, the next concrete tests are the directors’ decision, Wachtell’s findings and the senators’ demand for export-control records.