Nvidia’s board reviews CEO Jensen Huang’s future amid FBI probe

Nvidia’s board is reviewing Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang’s future and may seek his immediate departure, though the board has so far backed him to remain in the role. It could also ask Huang to step away from his responsibilities while the investigation moves forward, though an Nvidia spokesperson said Jensen intends to continue as CEO and lead the company without interruption.

In a company-wide memo on Sunday, Huang said he had an affair with Kimberly Powell, 48, Nvidia’s healthcare vice president who reports to him. Five former employees confirmed the relationship to The New York Times. Nvidia’s corporate code of conduct bars personal relationships between managers and subordinates, which this relationship violates. People saw the pair showing affection at a San Jose hotel during the GTC developer conference in March, and a bystander recorded the interaction, leading Nvidia security to present a non-disclosure agreement.

Huang, who is 63, co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and built the company into a major force in AI infrastructure and graphics computing. The board has no chair, which sources say underscores Huang’s singular role at the company.

Huang previously had a relationship with Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le. Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based data center company and Nvidia customer, once employed her as an executive. U.S. intelligence officials believe Alice Huang served as an asset for China’s Ministry of State Security, was recruited to gather information about Jensen Huang and sought to influence Nvidia’s lobbying on chip export restrictions to China. Public reporting does not show that Jensen Huang knowingly helped Chinese intelligence.

President Trump said earlier this week that federal investigators are looking into Huang’s ties to Alice Huang. The White House pushed back on Tuesday on reporting about when Trump learned of the relationship, pointing to his Monday comments that he thought Huang did not know the woman was suspected of spying. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, accused Trump on Tuesday of dereliction of duty, saying Trump did not act after a briefing roughly a year ago about Huang’s relationship.

The board hired Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz to conduct an independent investigation into security and governance questions tied to Huang’s interactions. Partner Joon H. Kim will lead the probe and served as acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Independent directors will supervise the review, Huang has agreed to cooperate, and the board retains confidence in him. The board said it sees no basis to conclude that corporate secrets or American national security were compromised, and Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said Sunday that the government would alert Nvidia to any genuine threat.

Leaders of three U.S. House committees asked Huang to testify in a closed-door briefing. House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar and Republican chairs Brian Mast and Rick Crawford asked for a briefing with Huang on Nov. 18, asking him to accept that date or suggest another by Nov. 11.

Nvidia’s stock fell 4.3 percent, or $7.97, to $178.67 on Monday, cutting market valuation by roughly $193 billion. Shares fell 5 percent in after-hours trading on Nov. 11 following reports that the board may remove Huang, and the stock also fell 8 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday. NVDA shares are down 7.5 percent for the year and had fallen almost 20 percent in the past month before Monday’s early decline amid a wider AI stock sell-off.

Ars Technica called Nvidia a $4.2 trillion semiconductor group. CBS News values Nvidia at $4.5 trillion and ranks it as the world’s second-most valuable company. Nvidia’s annual reports and corporate governance documents contain no specific succession-planning reference, and they provide no details for replacing the chief executive in an emergency.

Technology analysts said replacing Huang would be difficult because they see him as central to Nvidia’s success. Daniel Newman, CEO of Futurum, said Nvidia has no known succession plan. Newman said no company executive would be the apparent successor if Huang had to leave.

Megaspeed‘s reported assets rose from roughly $33 million in 2023 to $3 billion in the following year, and Reuters reviewed the underlying corporate records. In October 2025, The New York Times reported that Commerce Department officials were investigating Megaspeed. Nvidia said its compliance review turned up no evidence of improper chip diversions, and the company said visits to Megaspeed’s facilities are consistent with a legitimate cloud-computing operation.

A shareholder class-action lawsuit accuses Nvidia and Huang of misleading investors. Larry Kudlow urged Huang to resign while investigations proceed, arguing that stepping down would show integrity, character and patriotism. Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called the Chinese spy narrative entirely baseless and slanderous. Chinese officials reject all espionage claims.