Nvidia Board Weighs Jensen Huang Exit—What Investors Should Watch

Nvidia’s board is weighing whether to oust longtime CEO Jensen Huang, forcing investors to confront a question that once seemed almost unthinkable: What happens to Nvidia without the man who spent 33 years building it into the backbone of the artificial intelligence boom? With no obvious successor, Huang’s departure could create a leadership vacuum at one of the world’s most valuable companies, injecting new uncertainty into Nvidia stock and the broader AI industry.

The crisis has escalated quickly. As I wrote Monday, Huang told employees on Nov. 8 that he had been unfaithful to his wife, and The Wall Street Journal now reports that Nvidia’s board is preparing to remove him and could meet as soon as today.

This follows reports tying him to Alice Huang, an executive at a Singapore-based AI data center operator called Megaspeed, whom U.S. officials reportedly believe works for Chinese intelligence. The reports prompted the board to open an independent investigation, CNBC reported.

On Nov. 11, more fuel was thrown on the fire after The New York Times reported another extramarital relationship, this time with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, who reports to Huang.

If Huang departs, it is unclear who could replace him. I previously noted he has 60 direct reports, which likely means that any one of those people sees only a small portion of the opportunities and challenges facing the company.

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Moreover, given what Huang has accomplished in building this company into one of the world’s most valuable, it appears unlikely that anyone could replace him and perform at the same level. Indeed, Nvidia has no public succession plan.

This could be bad news over the long term for Nvidia stock and the entire artificial intelligence industry, which depends heavily on the company’s ability to design and supply ever more powerful chips for training and operating AI data centers.