Jensen Huang’s image has been shattered. Could he pushed out at Nvidia?

For more than 30 years, Jensen Huang has been the seemingly unshakable public face of Nvidia. He co-founded the company as a young engineer in 1993 and oversaw its growth into a multitrillion dollar chipmaker and bellwether of the AI industry at large.

He’s also made it a family business. His children, Madison and Spencer, have taken leadership roles at the firm. While not a company executive, his wife, Lori Mills Huang, leads the family foundation which, as of 2024, controls over 60m Nvidia shares.

But Huang’s image as a family man has been shattered as of Sunday. After the New York Times revealed at the end of October that Huang may have been targeted by a Chinese intelligence asset who he had developed a close relationship with, he admitted in a letter to employees on Sunday that he had been having an affair.

Initially, Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said there was nothing out of the ordinary about Huang’s interactions with Alice Huang, an executive at a Singaporean datacenter firm, Megaspeed. US government officials had suspected Huang of smuggling American chips into China, prompting those officials to surveil and monitor her, the Times first reported. In the course of that surveillance, officials allegedly determined that Alice Huang was a Chinese spy and had gotten close with the Nvidia leader.

Nvidia’s board of directors have now launched an independent investigation about the national security concerns surrounding Huang’s relationship.

“I support the investigation and will cooperate fully,” Huang wrote in his letter. “I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.”

Megaspeed did not respond to a Guardian request for comment before publication.

In his letter, Huang apologized to his family, acknowledging how much they’ve supported him. His wife, Mills, kept a relatively low profile and didn’t play a formal role at Nvidia. However, in a 2023 interview with the New Yorker, Huang shared that Mills had also worked in Silicon Valley as a microchips engineer before stepping away to raise their children.

“Throughout my life, my family has given me love and support,” Huang wrote in his letter to employees. “They deserve my honesty and loyalty. Instead, I let them down and damaged the life we built together. I take full responsibility for what I did and the hurt I caused, and I accept the criticism that comes with it.”

Both his children now hold high ranking roles at the company, despite not initially pursuing careers in tech. His daughter, Madison, serves as the senior director of product and technical marketing for physical AI platforms, but got her start as a chef. She attended the Culinary Institute of America and Le Cordon Bleu before going to business school and transitioning to luxury marketing. She previously worked at LVMH – the parent company of Lous Vuitton.

Spencer, for his part, now serves as the director of product for Robotics at Nvidia but spent much of his career as a consultant before joining his father’s company as a product manager. Before consulting, he owned and co-founded a craft cocktail bar in Taiwan.

Could Jensen Huang be pushed out?

In his letter, Huang reiterated his commitment to Nvidia, saying he hoped to earn back his colleagues’ and employees’ trust. However, analysts and investors say there’s a chance he may be removed as CEO after the board’s investigation.

“This is a black eye moment for Jensen and will spark multiple congressional inquiries at a minimum and will create an overhang on the stock for a myriad of reasons,” said Dan Ives, a partner and analyst at investment bank Yorkville Ives. “There is clearly risk as discussed that Jensen could be removed as CEO depending on the board investigation and this will add risk to the stock as he is so important to the Nvidia story and strategy globally.”

Ives said the family’s role at Nvidia adds some complexities for the board.

“The board has to make its decision independent of the family spider web of Jensen and his family at Nvidia,” Ives told the Guardian. “It makes this a very complex situation for the board to navigate with the world watching.”

Huang is to Nvidia what Steve Jobs was to Apple, said Ken Mahoney, the CEO and president of Mahoney Asset Management. “If you asked any Nvidia investor or anyone involved in tech and markets, would they like to see Jensen gone? Definitely not, but [Nvidia] would survive,” Mahoney said.

“Losing Huang would introduce a lot of uncertainty, particularly given his influence over Nvidia’s strategy, culture, and relationships with major technology companies,” he continued. “The bigger question is whether a successor could maintain Huang’s strategic vision and ability to anticipate where the industry is heading, and how that new leader could be tested along the way if things become difficult.”

Executive affairs or inappropriate relationships have recently unseated CEOs, according to executive recruiting and coaching firm Challenger Gray and Christmas. In 2024, the CEO of Astronomer was caught on a kiss cam with the company’s chief people officer, leading him to resign shortly after. Nestlé fired CEO Laurent Freixe for a relationship with a subordinate.

Nvidia offers a more complex picture. On one hand, Huang’s affair is not just a matter morals or ethics, there are potential national security concerns. On the other, Huang is core to the DNA of Nvidia which in turn is the bedrock of the entire AI industry – an industry upon which the economy relies greatly.

Nvidia shares fell 7.5% as soon as the stock market opened, wiping over $330bn off the company’s value.

“When the CEO of the most valuable company in the world is tied to a counterintelligence investigation because of a personal relationship, every board in America should be paying attention,” said Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer at Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “It’s not just a question of romance or morality any more. It’s a question of judgment, national security exposure, shareholder trust, and whether the person at the top can be relied on to protect the enterprise.”

In a statement, Nvidia’s board said they do not believe either national security or company secrets were compromised but they will “examine all available information.”