Long before the alleged Chinese espionage scandal and the revelation of extramarital affairs, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang always liked to tell people how he met his wife Lori. In the early 1980s, Huang studied electrical engineering at Oregon State University and was assigned a certain Lori as a laboratory partner. He liked her - but he admits he wasn't exactly a master of seduction back then. He offered her to do homework together on Sundays and promised that then she would only get top grades.
In 1985, Jensen and Lori married. They have two children, now grown up, who both work in the company. Son Spencer works as a director in Nvidia's robotics division, and daughter Madison is a senior director.
Lori Huang has largely stayed out of the spotlight during the more than four decades of her marriage. An engineer herself, she now heads the couple's charitable foundation at Nvidia. She last appeared publicly alongside her husband at the White House state banquet in September in honor of Chinese President Xi.
Jensen Huang was born in Taiwan and spent part of his childhood in Thailand. His parents sent him to America when he was just nine years old. At 30, Huang co-founded Nvidia - the company that would make him one of the richest men in the world - and one of the most important faces in tech.
Nvidia's corporate structure is tailored to Huang. He has no official deputies and his replacement is likely to pose major problems for the company, says business journalist Jacob Ward on CNN: "He clearly had the feeling that he was 'too big to fail' - that is, too important to be allowed to fail." He placed himself at the center of the company that, in turn, was at the center of the most important industrial revolution in American history.
“He has 60 employees directly under him - and was therefore absolutely indispensable for the operations there,” explains Ward. "And now the question is: Can the company do without him?"
After the alleged Chinese espionage affair became known, the Nvidia board of directors initiated an investigation, but initially held on to Huang. Nvidia's stock price fluctuated with current headlines. Shareholders of the chip maker filed a class action lawsuit in California on Monday against the company over misleading information policies that could jeopardize Nvidia's business prospects. Ultimately, the alleged espionage affair also involves questions of national security.
Huang also repeatedly called on US President Donald Trump for the US government to relax export bans on particularly powerful chips to China - which in some cases happened. Trump asserted that they were old memory chip models. Three months after this relaxation, Nvidia donated $25 million to the construction of Trump's Ballroom in the White House.
Trump was informed by US security circles in May, in advance of his state visit to China, about Huang's connection to a suspected spy, but did nothing.
This could also fall on his feet now, says Ana Swanson of the New York Times, who helped research the case: "So far, the president has stuck by him. He has stated that Jensen is an honorable man, and he doesn't believe that Jensen knew that this woman was a spy." But the president and the government are now under considerable political pressure - "from Congress and the American public."
Huang was seen by many as a kind of "likeable tech bro" because he appeared more discreet than other Silicon Valley billionaires such as Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. Huang liked to act like an enthusiastic inventor and refrained from polarizing political tirades or eccentric social media posts. With his trademark black leather jacket, he appeared approachable and was celebrated like a rock star at tech trade fairs - and especially in his home country of Taiwan.
