Nvidia board reportedly moves to oust Jensen Huang after new affair report

Nvidia’s board is preparing to remove co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang, the Wall Street Journal reports, after the New York Times reported a second alleged extramarital affair, this time with an Nvidia executive who reports directly to him. Nvidia shares fell about 8% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, November 11, and are down about 11% over five days, according to TechCrunch.

What changed since Trump’s FBI comments

The last Unicorn API update, Trump says FBI is looking into Nvidia CEO affair as shares drop, covered President Trump’s statement that the FBI is investigating and his account that Huang “had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy”. Three things have moved since then:

• A second alleged affair. The New York Times reports that Huang had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care.
• A reported board move. The Wall Street Journal reports the board is preparing to oust Huang and will meet as soon as Wednesday to decide his future at the company.
• Pressure from Congress. Republican committee chairs have asked Huang for a closed-door briefing and say a subpoena is likely if he does not agree.

None of the new claims has been confirmed by Nvidia. Earlier coverage in this thread: Nvidia opens probe into CEO Jensen Huang’s ties to alleged Chinese spy and US memo reportedly says China recruited exec to spy on Nvidia’s CEO.

What the New York Times reports about Kimberly Powell

Citing five people who worked at Nvidia, the Times reports that Huang had an extramarital relationship with Powell, who reports directly to him. Huang and Powell are both married to other people.

According to the Times, two unnamed sources said the two were captured together at a hotel in San Jose during Nvidia’s GTC developer conference in March. TechCrunch, summarising the Times report, says they were captured on film “being affectionate” at a hotel during a conference earlier this year. The Times has not seen the video.

An unnamed source told CNBC that rumours of a relationship between the two had long circulated inside Nvidia, partly because Powell does not have a health or science background, according to The Verge.

Nvidia, Huang and Powell have not confirmed the report. When a Times reporter reached Huang, he reportedly said:

“I don’t think you should be talking to me directly,”

He then hung up, according to the report. Nvidia did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

The board meeting and the investigation already under way

The reported board move comes days after Huang admitted to an affair with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive whom US intelligence purports to be a Chinese spy. Alice Huang is a Chinese citizen and no relation to Jensen Huang. In a letter to employees that was also published as a press release, Huang wrote: “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

After that admission, Nvidia’s board opened an investigation and retained former US attorney Joon H. Kim and his firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, to handle it. The board said it has “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised” by Huang’s affair, and that Huang “fully supports the review”.

The Verge observes that the reported move to dismiss Huang suggests the board will not wait for the results of that investigation before acting. That is The Verge’s reading of the Journal report; the board has not said so.

Separately, Wired reported that Huang hired the crisis communications firm Heller last year, a firm known for handling public sex scandals. Heller did not immediately respond to The Verge.

Shares fall again and the succession question

The two outlets give slightly different figures for Wednesday’s after-hours drop. The Verge reports a fall of more than 7%, while TechCrunch puts it at about 8%, with the stock down about 11% over the past five days. ABC News notes that the stock also fell on Monday, the first trading session after Nvidia announced its investigation.

Huang has led Nvidia for 33 years. TechCrunch describes him as someone who famously delegates very little, and Huang has said he has about 60 direct reports. TechCrunch also reports that the company has no obvious successor and no succession plan.

In the desk’s reading, those two details sharpen the stakes of any board decision: a CEO with an unusually flat reporting structure and no named successor would leave a large gap. No source describes what investors are pricing in, and Nvidia has not said who would lead the company if Huang left.

Item	What the sources report
Board plans	Preparing to oust Huang; meeting as soon as Wednesday, per the WSJ
Second alleged affair	Kimberly Powell, VP of health care, per the NYT; unconfirmed
After-hours share drop	More than 7% (The Verge); about 8% (TechCrunch)
Five-day share drop	About 11%
Internal investigation	Led by Joon H. Kim and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
Federal probe	FBI investigating, per Trump; Justice Department took over the Megaspeed investigation, per the NYT

House Republicans press for a closed-door briefing

Last week, three House Republican committee chairs, Brian Mast of Foreign Affairs, Rick Crawford of Intelligence and John Moolenaar of the China committee, sent Huang a letter asking him to appear for a “joint, closed-door briefing”. The briefing would focus on Nvidia’s “security protocols against foreign adversary espionage”.

Mast told ABC News he was prepared to subpoena Huang if he did not respond by Wednesday, and when asked whether he would consider it, said “absolutely”. On Wednesday, Moolenaar said on Fox Business that Huang will likely be subpoenaed if he does not agree to the briefing. Huang had not responded.

Mast said he has a “lengthy” list of questions, including what correspondence Huang had with the Chinese government, and that he is “100%” worried about the national security implications:

“They’re American chips. You know. So we thank God that Jensen is an American entrepreneur. You know, it’s an American tech company because they’re the best chips anywhere in the globe. But that being said, we don’t want China to access them, to use them, to produce them like that.”

The concern is not limited to one party. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told ABC News there are “real concerns” and said lawmakers will need “a full briefing, specifically as it relates to the Nvidia issue”.

There is a timing problem. House Republicans lose control of their committees in January when the chamber turns over to Democrats, so a subpoena would likely expire and Democrats would need to issue a new one. Republicans on the Select Committee on China have also asked Huang to appear for a closed-door briefing on November 18; it is not known whether he will.

Why the chip-supply story matters for AI builders

The personal scandal sits on top of a business question about where Nvidia chips end up. Megaspeed, a Singapore-based AI infrastructure company, reportedly bought $4.8 billion in Nvidia chips over two years, and both the US and Singapore have previously investigated it over suspicions that it illegally shared chips with China. The Information reported that Alice Huang and her family built a network of companies in China and Singapore to acquire Nvidia chips, including Shanghai Century Litong, which became an Nvidia-preferred cloud partner with priority access to chips. The Information also reported that the company facilitated buying $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia chips, including banned chips.

Bloomberg reported that Nvidia’s head lawyer, Tim Teter, intervened in a 2025 US government probe into suspected AI chip smuggling by Megaspeed International, contacting Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler with questions about whether the administration played a role in detaining Alice Huang.

For developers and founders, Nvidia matters because it is one of the world’s largest makers of AI chips, and as a US company it faces restrictions on selling its most powerful chips to Chinese entities. The sources do not report any change to Nvidia’s products, roadmap or supply as a result of the scandal. The practical open questions are about governance and policy: who leads the company, and whether Congress or federal investigators push for tighter controls on how Nvidia’s partners obtain chips.

The spying claims themselves still rest on news reports of a US intelligence assessment that has not been made public. The Chinese government calls the allegations “baseless and purely slanderous smears against China,” and neither Alice Huang nor Megaspeed International responded to ABC News.

What to watch next

• The board’s decision. Whether the reported meeting ends with Huang’s removal, and whether Nvidia names an interim or permanent successor.
• Confirmation or denial. Nvidia, Huang and Powell have not confirmed the Times report.
• The internal review. Findings from the investigation led by Joon H. Kim and Wachtell.
• Congress. Whether Huang agrees to a briefing, attends the November 18 China committee session, or is subpoenaed before House control changes in January.
• Federal investigators. Any action from the FBI or the Justice Department, which took over the Megaspeed investigation, according to the Times.

Huang has already pulled out of upcoming speaking engagements at the ElevenLabs Summit and the Anthropic CEO Forum.