The halo of "Taiwan's Godfather" has collapsed: How did the Huang Jen-Hsun incident shake Taiwan's industry, politics and society?

Late at night on November 12, 2026, Nvidia (Huida/Nvidia) issued a short press release announcing that co-founder Huang Renxun would immediately resign as president, CEO and director, ending the 33-year career of Nvidia, which he founded and helmed alone.

This news instantly exploded around the world, and was also hotly debated in Taiwan, where he was born.

Huang was born in Tainan in 1963. He immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 9 years old. He has frequently returned to Taiwan as a "son of Taiwan" over the years. He speaks Taiwanese better than Chinese. He has joined forces with Taiwanese companies and Taiwanese manufacturers such as TSMC, the world's leading chip foundry, to build an AI chip empire, making "Taiwan an AI island" an optimistic expectation for Taiwanese people.

Driven by the wave of AI, Taiwan's stock market has hit record highs every year. Investors with huge pockets jokingly call him "Taiwan's godfather." The media touts Huang, who is dressed in black leather, as a rock star-like technology "god." Behind the myth is a romance that is repeatedly played in front of Taiwanese people - Mr. Huang married his college classmate Lori.

Nowadays, Mr. Huang is surrounded by extramarital scandals, and is involved in the suspicion of "Chinese spy" Huang Le, who is suspected by the United States. As well as the American media predicts that more extramarital affairs will be exposed soon, Huang Renxun has fallen from the altar at the speed of light. The Wall Street Journal stated that this turmoil is testing Taiwan's devotion to this "hometown hero."

BBC Chinese analyzes how Taiwan's industry, politics and society have re-examined their warm relationship with "Taiwan's Godfather" Huang Jen-Hsun in recent years.

Taiwan’s semiconductor boom is “tied to one company”

Huida has a very deep connection with Taiwan’s industrial chain, and its origins date back to the AI wave.

Technology expert Lin Hongwen said in a Taiwanese media column that the cooperation between Huida and TSMC began in the late 1990s. At that time, Huida was still a small company and TSMC was not the TSMC it is today. The two companies have made mutual achievements along the way: most of Huida’s GPUs (Graphics Processing) Unit, graphics processing unit) are all manufactured by TSMC. TSMC’s advanced processes and CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) advanced packaging are also driven by Huida’s orders.

In the AI ​​era, this supply chain has expanded into an entire semiconductor industry cluster—hundreds of Taiwanese companies, including major manufacturers Hon Hai and Quanta, making "Taiwan an AI island" no longer just a slogan.

Lin Hongwen gave an example. At the Computex in Taipei last year, Huang Renxun did not stand on the stage and wait for people to greet him. Instead, he "walked over table by table, one by one, shaking hands and greeting every Taiwanese supplier." Those handshakes held "decades of friendship."

Taiwanese financial expert Hu Caiping also said on her Facebook page that every time Huang Jen-Hsun comes to Taiwan, he does so with great fanfare. Even though this is a business strategy to win over the supply chain, Mr. Huang has brought many influential CEOs from Silicon Valley to Taiwan.

"Huang stood up for these companies, and their speeches in Taiwan often shocked the world. This brought unprecedented attention and energy to Taiwan. No American technology company boss has ever treated Taiwan so kindly, so I am still grateful no matter what."

Her article attracted more than 20,000 "likes" from netizens.

However, Jen-Hsun Huang’s biographer Stephen Witt wrote in the New York Times the night before that Huang Jen-Hsun’s style of direct management of the company’s top 60 people with one man’s orders, high pressure and flat style, and even placed his children and sons-in-law with no technical background into the company’s top management. This is rare for high-end companies in the United States, but it is similar to the style of small and medium-sized enterprises in his hometown of Taiwan.

During this Huida storm, U.S. stock prices plummeted, and Taiwanese stockholders were panicked. A stock investor in Kaohsiung told the BBC reporter with a wry smile: "My US stocks have suffered huge losses. I was not the one who had the affair, so how could it affect me?"

However, on November 13, Taiwan stocks rebounded by more than 1,000 points, and Huida's partner MediaTek once hit the daily limit, which seems to confirm the market's strong confidence in the confidence of Taiwan's semiconductor industry chain. The "Business Times" said that after "Old Huang cut its tail", the Taiwan stock market released pressure. Even though the four major U.S. stock indexes closed in the black on the 12th, Taiwan stocks regarded this news as an opportunity to eliminate shortcomings and closed with a sharp increase.

Huang Guowei, a Taiwanese investment consultant, bluntly told the Central News Agency that Huang Renxun's resignation will have "no impact at all" on Taiwanese factories. As AI continues to upgrade and "de-China" trends, "Taiwan's AI supply chain is still irreplaceable."

Financial expert Dr. Zhu Yuezhong also told BBC Chinese: "Only TSMC can produce Huida's high-end chips. No matter who is the CEO, they need TSMC."

He pointed out that in the short term, this incident will have little impact on the global semiconductor industry chain, but Huida's resources will inevitably be reallocated in the future, including both customers and the supply chain. "In the past, Jen-Hsun Huang had the final say on who to place orders to and who to sell the chips to. In the future, the allocation will be rearranged. The supply chain in Southeast Asia that receives orders from Huida will bear the brunt."

Technology expert Lin Hongwen also reminded that Taiwan's AI boom is partly tied to a company, "even tied to a person's favors and relationships." He believes that it was an advantage when Huang Renxun was around. Without him, "favors will be replaced by contracts, and trust will be replaced by legal processes."

True competitiveness ultimately depends on its own technology and irreplaceability.

Huida Overseas Headquarters: Will it affect the election of Taipei mayor?

The impact of the Huang Jen-Hsun scandal also extends to Taiwan’s political circles.

Huida is not only an important customer in Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain, but its overseas headquarters has settled in Taipei. It has also become one of the most high-profile investment achievements of the Taipei City Government in recent years. It is also closely linked to Mayor Chiang Wanan's policy image and re-election plan.

Huida selected the T17 and T18 bases of Shilin Science and Technology Park (Beishike), Beitou, Taipei City to establish its overseas headquarters. According to reports, the base is about 3.89 hectares and is planned to be a low-volume building in the shape of a "constellation". It is expected to be stationed in 2030 and can accommodate about 4,000 people. The investment scale is at least NT$40 billion (US$1.2 billion).

The two parties signed a 50-year plus 20-year land rights agreement, with a contract royalty of NT$12.2 billion. It is expected that from construction to operation, it will create about 10,000 jobs in Taipei City.

Jiang Wanan has publicly stated many times in the past that winning Huida's presence in Taipei is his "most fulfilling thing in the past four years." He once revealed to Taiwanese media that he and his wife Shi Fanggen contacted Huang Renxun through an "intermediary" and directly communicated with Huang about the location selection via email.

After Huang Renxun was involved in the scandal and stepped down, Jiang Wanan's public stance on Huida-related issues seemed to become more low-key. When asked by the media, he only responded: "The city government has not received relevant information. The cooperation is proceeding as planned and a complete contract has been signed."

The Taipei City Government emphasized that Huida has paid the performance bond, royalties and land rent normally, the underground diaphragm wall project has been reviewed and approved, and the construction is progressing as scheduled and will not be affected by the CEO's change.

However, the outside world still questions whether this highly personal "fight" for political achievements will have a subtle impact on the election at the end of the year after Huang Renxun's halo collapsed.

In this regard, Zhang Junhao, a professor at the Department of Political Science at Tunghai University, told BBC Chinese that if the Huida incident has an impact on the election, it may mainly involve Chinese factors, such as the "Spygate incident" that is of concern to the outside world. But for now, Taipei City’s opponent Shen Boyang has not considered China factors as his main election strategy, so the impact of the Huida storm on the election is not yet visible.

"Unless it affects the stock price and makes investors dissatisfied," he said.

goodbye! Taiwan godfather! Taiwanese society’s god-making project

Huang is popular across Asia, but in Taiwan he is welcomed more like an old, familiar friend than the average entrepreneur.

His origin in Taiwan has led the Taiwanese media to regard him as "one of their own". His people-friendly style includes visiting Taipei night markets, using his "money skills" to treat everyone, shaking hands with suppliers table after table, and his rock star-like leather jacket style, making "Ren Lai Crazy" a social phenomenon.

Lev Nachman, associate professor at the Institute of International Development at National Taiwan University, told foreign media that Taiwanese people's reaction was "very shocked and disbelieving" like the rest of the world, because he has always been like a "cool uncle."

However, Patrick McGee, author of the best-selling technology book "Apple in China", admitted in an exclusive interview with CBS (BBC US partner) yesterday that he was puzzled by Huang's stance on Taiwan. "I have always found it strange that Jen-Hsun Huang was born in Taiwan, but he seems not to pay attention to Xi Jinping's remarks about Taiwan, or in other words, lacks a deeper understanding."

The Jen-Hsun Huang incident did not cause Taiwan's semiconductor industry chain to collapse immediately - TSMC's production capacity and technical confidence, as well as existing orders, made the market seem to have completed the digestion of "all the bad news" in one day. The Beishike contract has also been implemented, so it will not be lost because of one person.

But the most profound impact of this incident of falling from the altar at the speed of light is on concepts. Taiwanese society's admiration for him, politics' binding on his achievements, and industry's dependence on his personality are all being recalibrated.