W A S H I N G T O N : Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive of Nvidia on Thursday, ending his 33-year run at the helm of the AI giant he co-founded after revelations that he had two extramarital affairs, including with a woman accused of spying for China.
The company’s board said Huang had stepped down as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately.
Chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while keeping her finance role, and the board will consider internal and external candidates for a permanentreplacement. It named former Synopsys CEO and board member Harvey Jones as its first-ever board chairman.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that former Apple CEO Tim Cook should replace Huang at Nvidia.
‘Now that Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!’ Trump, who was close to Huang, said on his Truth Social network.
Huang is Nvidia’s fourth-largest investor with a stake of about 3.61 per cent. Nvidia sharesfell more than 10pc in premarket trading, and weighed on the broader market.
Pressure had been mounting on Huang in recent days after reportssaid the 63-year-old, who is married, had an affair with a Chinese businesswoman who US authorities suspect of spying for Beijing.
Nvidia’s board met on Wednesday to consider hisouster, a person familiar with the matter said, after reports that Huang also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to him.
Huang’s exit leaves the $4 trillion company uncertain and could disrupt the AI ecosystem he funded by investing Nvidia’s cash into cloud providers and labs.
Michael Feldman, a portfolio manager at ClearBridge Investments, said that Nvidia won’t lose its roadmap, which is visible for the next several years, suddenly but the execution will be at risk as Jensen has been the chief conductor of an extraordi-narily complex system.
Investor sentiment toward AI stocks is shaky due to high cash burn and rising debt among cash-rich tech giants, raising doubts about the AI boom’s viability.
Huang’s departure could also impact US chip export policy due to his efforts to maintain access to the Chinese market and his connections with President Donald Trump.
Huang’s rockstar status Once primarily known for its graphics chips for gamers, Nvidia has become a central player in the global AI boom because of its chips’ parallel-processing capabilities, making it a strategic prize inUS-China competition and the world’s most valuable company. Its success has turned Nvidia CEO into a celebrity executive, attracting devoted fans and even moving stocks through his public remarks.
However, Huang had faced increased scrutiny over his reported ties to Alice Huang, a former executive at Singaporebased cloud company Megaspeed whom US authorities have identified as a Chinese intelligence asset.
Meanwhile, Alice, who left Singapore in February, was barred from re-entering after an investigation into possible offences.
-Agencies