Nvidia is preparing to oust its founder and longtime leader, after a scandal with his mistress, who may be a Chinese spy.
The New York Times revealed that he had another extramarital affair.
Nvidia's board of directors is preparing to oust 63-year-old Jensen Huang from his position, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources. Huang is the founder and permanent leader of the company since 1993, one of the key figures in the world's technology industry. Over the course of 33 years, he transformed Nvidia from a video card manufacturer to one of the leaders in the artificial intelligence industry and one of the most valuable companies in the world with a value of more than $4 trillion. Now his career is in jeopardy - according to the WSJ, the board may meet to make a decision on his future as early as today.
At the same time, this evening the "New York Times" reported on another alleged mistress of Huang - Nvidia's vice president of health, Kimberly Powell, who was directly subordinate to him. Journalists spoke with five people who worked at the company, who confirmed these figures. The scandal surrounding the head of Nvidia began after a NYT investigation in October about Huang's alleged relationship with Chinese woman Alice Huang, a former senior executive of Singapore-based Mega Speed. The company purchased advanced chips from Nvidia, and US authorities suspected that it was enabling the supply of technology to China while circumventing export restrictions. According to journalists, American intelligence determined that Alice was passing information to Beijing.
On November 8, Jensen Huang admitted that he had cheated on his wife and publicly apologized to her, his children and his employees. Nvidia's board has launched an independent investigation to determine whether the executive was the target of a foreign intelligence operation. The FBI became interested in the story, and the shareholders filed a lawsuit against the company. Nvidia lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market value and its stock plummeted.