Nvidia board prepares to oust Jensen Huang after report of second affair, with an executive who reports to him
Latest: Nvidia's board is preparing to remove co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday evening, 11 November, citing people familiar with the matter, with directors set to meet as soon as that day to decide his future. CBS News reported the same, citing two sources, and the Financial Times reported that the board was holding urgent talks. The move followed a New York Times report earlier on Wednesday, citing five people who worked at the company, that Huang also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reports to him. Asked about it by the Times, Huang said "I don't think you should be talking to me directly" and hung up. Nvidia and Powell did not immediately comment, and no board decision had been announced at the time of writing.
Market reaction: Nvidia shares fell about 8% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, while AMD and Broadcom rose about 4% and 3%. Including that move, Nvidia has lost roughly $600 billion of market value this week, according to Reuters. Nvidia has no board chair and no public succession plan; its bylaws allow directors to remove the CEO with or without cause by majority vote. Huang co-founded the company in 1993 and has led it for 33 years.
The investigation: Nvidia's independent directors said on Tuesday, 10 November, that they have retained Joon H. Kim, former acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to run the "thorough and independent investigation" the board announced on Sunday. The review covers whether founder and CEO Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort and whether company secrets or national security were compromised. Lead independent director Stephen Neal is expected to play a central role, according to CNBC.
An earlier warning: On 13 May 2026, New York short seller Culper ResearchDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, founded by Christian LamarcoDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, published a report, The China Problem, and a 17-part thread, saying it was short Nvidia. Culper argued that more than 20% of Nvidia's FY 2026 compute revenue was still tied to China through diversion and Southeast Asian intermediaries, even after the company said that business had gone to zero. The report focused on Megaspeed, which Nvidia had described as having no Chinese shareholders. Culper said filings suggested Megaspeed was financed by Alibaba through Apex Enterprise Solutions in Singapore, that Megaspeed's balance sheet grew from $33 million at the end of 2023 to $3.0 billion at the end of 2024 on $2.9 billion of refundable deposits from an unnamed source, and that a Malaysian unit, Speedmatrix, imported $4.6 billion of product from December 2024 through January 2026, $4.0 billion of it from Aivres Systems, a former Inspur unit. Culper also described Jensen Huang's relationship with Alice Huang as "uncomfortably close," citing a June 2024 gathering and a May 2025 dinner, and quoting a Megaspeed employee who said Alibaba representatives accompanied Huang's visits and that Alice Huang was still in charge despite media reports she had left. Culper's claims have not been independently verified, and the firm was openly short the stock. The report was covered by some financial outlets in May, but the Alice Huang angle did not become a mainstream story until the autumn intelligence reporting. Culper did not name Shanghai Century Litong or the $7.5 billion figure that The Information reported this week. A dedicated note on Lamarco, Culper and the short is here.
The new reporting: The Information reported on Tuesday, citing two people who know her, that Alice Huang (also known as Huang Le), together with her husband and sister, built a network of companies in China and Singapore that helped move at least $7.5B of Nvidia chips, roughly 240,000 H100, H200 and some A100 GPUs, to Chinese buyers since 2023. At the centre, the report says, was Shanghai Century Litong, founded in June 2023 and granted Nvidia preferred cloud partner status by that October. Some chips reportedly ended up in data centres serving Alibaba and Tencent. Reuters said it could not independently verify the report, and Nvidia has not commented on it. Shanghai Century Litong is a controlled subsidiary of the listed Chinese electronics group Jiangsu Lettall Electronic, which took a 90% stake for US$61.9M in June 2023 to build an AI computing rental business, according to the company's exchange filings cited by Benzinga. Jiangsu Lettall reported about US$165M of AI computing revenue for 2025; the filings do not establish any wrongdoing by the company.
Huang's message: In an email to staff on Sunday, Huang acknowledged an affair, writing "I was unfaithful to my wife," apologised to his family and employees, and said he will cooperate with the board's inquiry. At the time Nvidia said he would continue to lead the company as CEO, and the board said it had "no reason to believe" national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised and that it had confidence in Huang.
The wider fallout: President Trump said the FBI is looking into the matter, adding that Huang told him he had "no idea" she was a spy. The New York Times reported that Trump was briefed on the intelligence aboard Air Force One in May, before Huang joined his trip to China. A US Commerce Department inquiry into suspected chip diversion by Megaspeed, the Singapore data-centre firm where Alice Huang was an executive, is now led by the Justice Department. Shareholders have filed a proposed class action in California. Nvidia shares fell about 6% on Tuesday after a drop of more than 4% on Monday. China has rejected the spying allegations as groundless.
What happens next? Nvidia reports quarterly earnings on 17 November, and three Republican House committee chairs have asked Huang for a closed-door briefing on 18 November. Senator Chris Coons has pledged a Senate inquiry. None of the public reporting so far shows that Huang knowingly broke export rules.
China's own restrictions: Commentator Arnaud Bertrand argues this gets Beijing's incentives backwards. In September 2025 the Cyberspace Administration of China instructed companies including Alibaba and ByteDance to cancel orders for Nvidia's RTX Pro 6000D, Bloomberg reported, citing the Financial Times. Reuters reported on 5 November 2026, citing two people familiar with the matter, that about 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips were stored in Hong Kong awaiting shipment to mainland China, as Beijing withholds approval for large-scale imports. Nvidia's annual report for the fiscal year ended 25 January 2026 says the Chinese government has "discouraged customers from purchasing, importing, or using" its data-centre products, including China-specific chips designed to comply with US export controls. Bertrand casts Megaspeed's Southeast Asian rentals to Alibaba as a private workaround to Chinese policy as well as US export controls. US officials, according to the New York Times, say the Ministry of State Security wanted to learn about AI chips and influence Nvidia; no evidence of that has been published, and China has denied the allegations.
Why it matters: Nvidia is the most important supplier in the AI build-out and sits at the centre of US export-control policy toward China. What began as a personal scandal has become a question of leadership and succession at the world's most valuable chipmaker, which has no designated successor to the founder who built it. Much of the diversion thesis, and the questions about Huang's relationship with Alice Huang, were already in a short seller's report six months ago.
Sources: Reuters on the WSJ report, 11 November; CBS News; Financial Times, 11 November; The Verge; MarketWatch; Reuters on Nvidia's board; Culper Research, The China Problem, 13 May 2026; Culper Research thread; TechCrunch, 9 November; CNBC: Nvidia hires Wachtell Lipton; BBC; Financial Times; Reuters on The Information's $7.5B report; Tom's Hardware; Fortune; AP; Nvidia board statement, 8 November; CNBC: Huang's staff email; Reuters, 5 November 2026; CNA reprint of Reuters; Bloomberg, citing the FT, 17 September 2025; Arnaud Bertrand.
Photo: Getty Images via TechCrunch
