Timeline of a scandal: How Jensen Huang's abrupt resignation unfolded at Nvidia

Jensen Huang's departure from Nvidia caps a tumultuous week for the chipmaker, with his resignation coming less than a week after his extramarital relationship with a suspected Chinese spy became public.

But the seeds for Huang's downfall were planted much earlier. The woman with whom he had a relationship, Alice Huang (no relation), arrived on the tech scene in 2023, when she became the managing director of Singapore-based data center Megaspeed International. 

Megaspeed, which on Thursday said it has complied with U.S. laws, would proceed to buy billions of dollars in Nvidia chips and servers. Over the past two years, Alice Huang, also known by her Chinese name Huang Le, has been photographed and recorded socializing with Jensen Huang, prompting questions in May from one quizzical investor about their "uncomfortably close relationship."

Below is a timeline of events that led to Huang's startling resignation on Thursday. 

November 2015

Alice Huang, a former television reporter in China, joins investment firm Shanghai Hexi Investment Management as deputy general manager, according to social media posts and records from Simuwang, a Chinese private equity database. Shanghai Hexi was founded by Kang Wei, who became her husband, according to the Wall Street Journal.

March 2023

7Road International, originally incorporated in Singapore in 2015 as 7Road International, is renamed Megaspeed, and ownership of the "neocloud" company is transferred to Huang Le Ltd., an enterprise controlled by Alice Huang. She becomes its managing director.

June 2023

Cloud-computing company Shanghai Century Litong is founded. A company linked to Alice's sister, Huang Yu, held an ownership stake.

October 2023

Nvidia designates Shanghai Century Litong as a preferred cloud partner, giving the Chinese company priority access to Nvidia's chips, according to The Information. 

Around November 2023

Megaspeed's shares were transferred to another Singapore company, Swiftdata, and Alice Huang ceased to be listed as a director of the company, according to news site Caixin Global.

June 7, 2024

Information technology firm NetThunder posted a picture on social media of Alice Huang and Jensen Huang with other tech executives at a bar in Taipei, Taiwan.

End of 2024

Megaspeed's assets exploded from $33 million in 2023 to $3 billion in 2024, according to financial filings reviewed by Reuters. 

Shipment records from December 2024 through early 2026, analyzed by short-selling firm Culper Research, suggest that Megaspeed's Malaysian subsidiary, Speedmatrix, imported about $4 billion in products from a company that builds equipment with Nvidia chips. 

Early 2025

Alice Huang and her husband, Kang Wei, jointly pitched Chinese investors on a Southeast Asia data center project, reportedly telling them they had "no problem securing GPUs" — the graphics processing units Nvidia specializes in — and citing Alibaba as a customer, according to the Financial Times.

January 31, 2025

Jensen Huang meets with President Trump at the White House. It marks their first of many White House encounters in Mr. Trump's second term. 

February 2025

Singapore opens an investigation into Megaspeed and several other companies over suspected false declarations related to the purchase of servers and other offenses, according to Bloomberg News.

May 22, 2025

Jensen Huang and Alice Huang are recorded on video together at a dinner at San Liu Shi Fu restaurant in Taipei, around the time of the Computex tech conference in Taiwan.

July 2025

Jensen Huang says the technology giant has won approval from the Trump administration to sell its advanced H20 computer chips, used to develop artificial intelligence, to China, a reversal of prior administration policy.

"It's so innovative and dynamic here in China that it's really important that American companies are able to compete and serve the market here in China," Huang said at the time.

That same month, Nvidia becomes the first public company to be worth $4 trillion.

February 2026

Chinese police detained Kang Wei, Alice Huang's husband and business partner, in connection with suspected stock manipulation, sources told Caixin.

That same month, Singapore barred Alice Huang from re-entering the country after she downplayed her role at Megaspeed amid the country's investigation into its operations, according to a Bloomberg News report.

May 12, 2026

Jensen Huang boards Air Force One in Alaska to accompany Mr. Trump on a two-day trip to Beijing. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed Mr. Trump about the counterintelligence risk posed by Jensen Huang's affair with Alice Huang, according to the New York Times. The briefing, which occurred before Jensen Huang joined the trip, was the second briefing Mr. Trump had received from U.S. intelligence about the Nvidia CEO's relationship, the Times reported.

September 24, 2026

Jensen Huang attends Mr. Trump's state dinner for China's Xi Jinping at the White House.

September 29, 2026

Jensen Huang attends an AI event at the White House and signs a set of voluntary AI safety standards amid calls for tighter guardrails on the technology.

November 8, 2026

Jensen Huang writes a message to Nvidia employees admitting that he had an extramarital affair. The same day, Nvidia's board said it had launched an independent investigation amid reports that its CEO was the target of a "foreign intelligence effort."

The New York Times on Nov. 8 reported that U.S. government surveillance suggested Alice Huang was feeding information directly to Beijing.

November 9, 2026

At an impromptu press conference at the White House, Mr. Trump said he had spoken to Jensen Huang and that the tech exec had indicated he was unaware of Alice Huang's links to China's intelligence services. Mr. Trump also described the Nvidia CEO as an "honorable man" who's "definitely suffering." 

Mr. Trump didn't address questions about when he first learned about the spy allegations, only saying, "not too long ago" and that "it didn't make much of an impact on me."

November 11, 2026

The New York Times reports that Jensen Huang had an affair with Kimberly Powell, a subordinate at Nvidia. 

November 12, 2026

Nvidia's board of directors announces that Jensen Huang has resigned, effective immediately.