Nvidia board weighs removing chief executive Jensen Huang, according to reports

Nvidia's board of directors was preparing to remove Jensen Huang, the company's co-founder and chief executive, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday 11 November, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that the board met late on Wednesday, US time, to decide whether to remove him.

Bloomberg reported that the board had been working with an outside firm to identify potential replacements and was considering naming a temporary chief executive while it looks for a permanent one.

Nvidia has not publicly commented on the reports. ABC News said it had asked the company for comment and did not report a response. As of Thursday morning, no decision had been announced.

Shares fall

Nvidia shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, to $159.51, CBS News reported. They were down 7.2% in US pre-market trading shortly after 10:00 CET on Thursday, according to Euronews. CBS News said the company's market value had fallen by more than $450 billion since the board announced an investigation on 8 November.

Bernstein cut its rating on the stock to market perform from outperform and lowered its price target to $200 from $400, and Baird downgraded the shares to neutral, according to Bloomberg, in a report published by the Irish Times. Nvidia is scheduled to report quarterly results on 17 November.

The investigation

On Sunday 8 November, Nvidia's board announced an independent investigation "in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort", ABC News reported. The board said at the time that it had "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised" and that it "has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team". It said Huang fully supported the review.

The New York Times reported on 29 October that Huang had "a close relationship" with Alice Huang, no relation, a senior executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed International, whom the paper identified as an alleged Chinese government agent, according to ABC News. CBS News reported that Megaspeed bought nearly $5 billion in AI chips from Nvidia. These are allegations; they have not been proven.

China's government called the allegations "baseless and purely slanderous smears against China", ABC News reported. An Nvidia spokesperson had earlier said Huang's "interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected". Alice Huang and Megaspeed did not respond to ABC News' requests for comment. President Donald Trump said Huang told him he "had no idea that she was a spy", according to ABC News, and CBS News reported Trump as saying the FBI is examining the ties between the two.

In a message to employees on Sunday, Huang admitted to an extramarital affair. "There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry," he wrote, according to CBS News and ABC News. ABC News said the message did not name any other person.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Huang allegedly had a separate affair with an Nvidia executive who reports to him, according to ABC News, which said it had not verified the report. Reuters said it could not immediately verify it.

Congress

Republicans on the House Select Committee on China have requested a closed-door briefing on 18 November, and Representative Brian Mast said he was prepared to subpoena Huang if he did not respond, ABC News reported.