WSJ: Nvidia’s board is preparing to oust Jensen Huang

Nvidia’s board is preparing to remove Jensen Huang as chief executive, The Wall Street Journal reported on November 11, citing people familiar with the matter. According to the paper, the move follows two extramarital affairs, one with a suspected Chinese spy and one with a Nvidia employee, and the board could meet to decide his future as soon as Wednesday, the day of the report.

No decision has been announced, and the reported ouster rests on the Journal’s unnamed sources. Nvidia shares slid in after-hours trading as the report spread. If Huang leaves, the Journal writes, one of the world’s most valuable companies will need a new leader.

The affair with an employee is new. The spy allegation goes back to October 29, when The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded that Alice Huang worked as a Chinese spy and had grown close to Jensen Huang, The San Francisco Standard reports. She is an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer. The Standard also notes that on Friday, November 6, the Financial Times reported a U.S. government memo describing a romantic relationship between the two.

Huang had played the relationship down. In an interview with Bloomberg News last month, he said his dealings with Alice Huang were “related to Megaspeed, and it was all completely normal and not unusual.” Megaspeed bought more than $4.8 billion of Nvidia chips over the past two years and has become one of the company’s biggest customers in Southeast Asia, AP reports. The Chinese government has dismissed the allegations as “groundless speculation.”

Nvidia’s board has already put a committee of independent directors, working with outside counsel, in charge of an inquiry. It said it had “no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised.” On Sunday, November 8, President Trump called Huang “an honorable guy,” AP reports.

Nvidia is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on November 17, and for the day after, Reps. Brian Mast, John Moolenaar and Rick Crawford have invited Huang to an in-person joint briefing, Fox Business reports.