Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Resigns Days After Affair With Suspected Chinese Spy Becomes Public

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday, less than a week after his extramarital relationship with a suspected Chinese spy became public. Huang had led the chipmaker since founding it in 1993. The woman, Alice Huang (no relation), also known as Huang Le, became managing director of Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed International in 2023. Megaspeed went on to buy billions of dollars in Nvidia chips and servers, and said Thursday that it has complied with U.S. laws. Huang emailed employees the previous Sunday admitting he had been unfaithful to his wife and saying there was no excuse. He has not spoken publicly since, though reports of more affairs have emerged. Nvidia has lost $1 trillion in market value since the allegations surfaced. U.S. lawmakers and the FBI have scrutinized the episode, and new chip export controls are possible. The board named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress interim CEO. Nvidia's chips, investments and financial guarantees support an ecosystem of companies worth trillions of dollars.

CBS News, on the left, frames the story as a timeline of how the resignation unfolded. It traces Alice Huang's career from a Chinese TV reporter to an investment-firm role and then Megaspeed, her control of the company through Huang Le Ltd., and an investor's question in May about an "uncomfortably close" relationship. It leans on the Wall Street Journal and public records. Breitbart, on the right, leads with Nvidia employees campaigning internally for Huang's reinstatement, citing WIRED. It notes that more than 1,600 comments on an internal post were mostly supportive and quotes employees asking for a second chance. It also stresses the $1 trillion loss, the FBI and lawmakers, and the board's makeup of early investors and Huang's confidants. Both sides cover the scandal and the resignation, but CBS stresses the Megaspeed business ties while Breitbart stresses staff loyalty. Axios, in the alternative group, takes a different angle, calling the exit an AI industry earthquake larger than Sam Altman's 2023 OpenAI firing.