Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive officer of Nvidia, the artificial intelligence chipmaker he co-founded, following reports of two alleged extramarital affairs, including one involving a woman accused of having links to Chinese intelligence.
Gatekeepers News reports that the company announced Huang’s departure on Thursday, bringing an end to his 33-year leadership of the technology giant.
Nvidia’s Chief Financial Officer, Colette Kress, has been appointed interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor.
Huang, 63, has also relinquished his seat on the company’s board. Nvidia, however, did not disclose the reason for his resignation.
The development comes amid a controversy that has unsettled investors and raised questions about the leadership of the multi-trillion-dollar company, which has played a central role in the global artificial intelligence boom.
Nvidia shares fell more than 10 per cent in premarket trading on Thursday following the announcement. The stock had already declined by approximately 25 per cent from its record high in early October.
Meanwhile, Beijing has rejected allegations that a woman linked to Huang was involved in espionage for China.
The company’s board appointed Harvey Jones, a former chief executive of chip design software firm Synopsys, as its first-ever chairman.
“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 in a statement.
Kress said she was committed to “building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years.”
Two alleged affairs
The controversy began following reports that Huang, who has been married to his wife, Lori Huang, for more than four decades, was involved in an extramarital relationship.
Huang reportedly admitted on Sunday to having an affair with Alice Huang, a former senior executive at Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed. The two are not related.
The development followed reports that US intelligence agencies had circulated a memo earlier in the year alleging that Alice Huang was an asset of China’s Ministry of State Security.
On Sunday, Nvidia’s board announced an investigation into reports that Huang had been the target of what it described as a “foreign intelligence effort”, while reiterating its confidence in his leadership at the time.
However, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Huang was allegedly involved in a second extramarital relationship, citing video evidence showing him being affectionate with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s 48-year-old vice-president of healthcare.
Powell has been a prominent figure in the company’s efforts to expand its technology into the healthcare and higher education sectors.
According to the newspaper, witnesses saw the pair displaying affection at a hotel while Powell was attending a conference in San Jose, California.
Nvidia’s code of conduct requires employees to avoid conflicts of interest and specifically identifies personal relationships as a potential source of such conflicts.
The controversy has also triggered legal action, with Nvidia shareholders filing a class-action lawsuit against Huang and the company over alleged failure to disclose information about the relationship to investors.
Search for successor
Huang had repeatedly declined to identify a potential successor whenever questions about his eventual departure from Nvidia were raised.
Kress, who will oversee the company in an interim capacity, joined Nvidia as chief financial officer in 2013 after spending nearly 25 years in finance positions at companies including Cisco and Microsoft.
Founded in 1993, Nvidia specialises in designing graphics processing units (GPUs), which were originally developed to power 3D graphics in video games but have since become essential components of artificial intelligence systems.
Most of the company’s processors are manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
Despite the leadership change, Nvidia said it would release its quarterly financial results as scheduled on November 17.
