Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive of AI
giant Nvidia, the company said on Thursday, after revelations that he had two
extramarital affairs, including one with a woman accused of spying for China.
Chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as
interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor, ending Huang's
33-year run at the helm of the company he co-founded. Huang, 63, also gave up
his seat on the board. The company did not give a reason for his departure.
The scandal has sent the shares of the
multi-trillion-dollar company tumbling. They were down more than 10 per cent in
premarket trading on Thursday after the announcement, having already fallen
about 25 per cent from their all-time high in early October. Huang has been a
key promoter of the AI boom, and his exit leaves Nvidia without its founding
leader at a crucial time for the sector.
The board appointed Harvey Jones, a former chief
executive of chip design software firm Synopsys, as its first-ever chair.
"The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we
expect the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to
continue without interruption," Jones said. Kress said she was committed
to "building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last
33 years."
The scandal began with reports that Huang, who has
been married to Lori Huang for more than 40 years, was involved in an
extramarital relationship. He admitted on Sunday to having an affair,
reportedly with Alice Huang, a senior executive at Singapore-based data centre
company Megaspeed. The two are not related. US intelligence reportedly
circulated a memo this spring alleging that Alice Huang was an asset of China's
Ministry of State Security. Beijing has rejected the spying allegations. On
Sunday, Nvidia's board announced a probe into reports that Huang had been the
target of a "foreign intelligence effort," while saying it retained
confidence in him.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Huang
had a second affair, citing video evidence of him being affectionate with
Nvidia's vice president of health care, Kimberly Powell. Powell, 48, has been a
public face of Nvidia's efforts to expand into higher education and health
care. According to the Times, the two were seen being affectionate at a hotel
by bystanders while she was speaking at a conference in San Jose, California.
Nvidia's code of conduct tells employees to avoid conflicts of interest and
cites "personal relationships" as an example.
Nvidia shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit
against Huang and the company for failing to disclose information about the
relationship to investors.
Huang had repeatedly avoided naming a successor when
asked. Kress joined Nvidia as finance chief in 2013 after nearly 25 years in
finance roles at companies including Cisco and Microsoft.
Founded in 1993, Nvidia designs graphics processing
units (GPUs), components originally built for 3D video game graphics that have
become the backbone of AI systems. Its chips are mostly manufactured by
Taiwan's TSMC. The company said it will release its quarterly results as
scheduled on November 17.
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