Nvidia's board is meeting late Wednesday to decide whether to oust CEO Jensen Huang, a source familiar with the matter told , as the world's dominant supplier of AI chips grapples with reports of two extramarital affairs involving its longtime leader. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the board meeting. The meeting marks a sharp shift from Sunday, when Nvidia's board expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team.
Under Nvidia's bylaws, Huang can be removed "with or without cause" by a majority vote of directors. Nvidia has 11 directors and considers all but Huang independent. Nvidia's stock slid more than 8% in extended trading after the Wall Street Journal first reported that the company was preparing to fire Huang.
If those losses hold, Nvidia will have lost about $600 billion in market value since the board announced its investigation into his relationship with a businesswoman called Alice Huang, alleged to be a Chinese spy. To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading.
To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Revelations that US intelligence was probing Alice Huang for facilitating shipments of Nvidia chips to Chinese firms set off a series of events: Wall Street began raising questions about Nvidia's governance and Jensen Huang's personal conduct, the company's board launched an internal investigation and hired outside counsel, while lawmakers began to push for tighter curbs on chip exports to China. "The market is starting to price Nvidia without its founder as the likely outcome, not a tail risk," said Armina Rosenberg, portfolio manager and co-founder of Minotaur Capital, which holds Nvidia shares.
"Losing Jensen would be a real blow." Huang's potential departure would leave a leadership vacuum at the roughly $4 trillion chipmaker he co-founded and built over more than three decades to become the top supplier of chips at the centre of the global AI boom and US-China technology rivalry. Huang, 63, has no obvious successor and owns about 3.6% of Nvidia's stock. He also has dozens of direct reports, underscoring the tight control he maintains over the company.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Nvidia's board has been working with an outside firm to identify potential replacements for Huang, citing a person familiar with the situation. Rosenberg said Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, who has held the role for more than a decade, would be the natural choice as an interim CEO, but said the bigger question was who would lead Nvidia's technology roadmap longer term. Odds on prediction market website Polymarket shifted sharply to show an 88% chance that Huang would resign or be removed by the end of the year.
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