Nvidia's board preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang, sources say
Nvidia's board of directors is preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang soon, according to two sources familiar with the matter, following allegations that Huang had an extramarital affair with a woman U.S. intelligence agencies believe was a Chinese asset.
The Trump administration is aware of the matter, the sources said.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the board's moves.
Nvidia's share price slid more than 8% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the Journal's report, extending a multi-day sell-off for one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies.
The company has faced days of turmoil following reports that American intelligence agencies believed Huang was the target of a Chinese spying plot.
Nvidia designs the powerful semiconductors that fuel many of the world's leading AI firms, making its technology highly sensitive and subject to export controls limiting sales to China.
The New York Times reported last week on allegations that Huang had a close relationship with Alice Huang, who previously led a Singapore-based firm called Megaspeed International that bought billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips and hardware. U.S. intelligence agencies have believed for months that Alice Huang — who is not related to Jensen Huang — was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security, the newspaper reported.
In a message to Nvidia employees over the weekend, Jensen Huang wrote that he was "unfaithful to my wife" and apologized for hurting her and their children. He did not name the woman involved.
Nvidia's board said Sunday it had launched an independent investigation into allegations that the CEO "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort." The board said it had no reason to believe the company's secrets or national security were compromised. Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said, "We trust that if we were the target of a genuine threat, the U.S. government would have notified us."
Two law enforcement sources told CBS News the Justice Department is also investigating Megaspeed over potential violations of U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips. Some analysts have raised questions about whether the saga resulted in China gaining access to Nvidia chips, though Megaspeed has denied any involvement in illegal chip transfers.
China has denied all allegations, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun telling reporters on Monday that the "so-called Chinese spy narrative is entirely baseless and constitutes slander and smear."
Jensen Huang has a close relationship with the Trump administration. President Trump gave Nvidia permission to sell its advanced H200 computer chips to "approved customers" in China late last year, with the federal government taking a 25% cut of chip sales. The deal did not include Nvidia's more advanced Blackwell or Rubin systems.
The Nvidia CEO and other U.S. tech executives traveled to China with Mr. Trump earlier this year.
On Monday, Mr. Trump called Jensen Huang a "very high-quality person," saying during a White House briefing that "the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he'll be in good shape." The president said he spoke to Jensen Huang to see how he was doing, and the executive "said he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy."
