Jensen Huang on Bloomberg's The Circuit: 'Just as I can be fired, the next CEO has to be hired'

The film: Emily ChangDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s BloombergDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → Originals series The Circuit released "The Rise and Reckoning of Jensen Huang" on 12 November 2026. In October, Chang followed Jensen HuangDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → across Paris, London, Stockholm and Berlin in four days, at what the film calls the height of his power. The documentary, now on YouTube, is framed by the crisis that broke weeks after the taping: Huang has admitted an extramarital affair after reports he was targeted by a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, and news clips in the film recap reports that Nvidia's board was preparing to consider his removal. Nvidia's board, the film notes, has said it has no reason to believe company secrets or US national security were compromised. China has called the allegations a smear.

Europe: Huang told a Paris audience that Nvidia had invested $8 billion in European startups in the last year alone, and that he would announce another $2 billion the following week. The film says France is jockeying to become Europe's AI centre, pointing to Paris-based Mistral AI and New York-based Hugging Face, which it says Nvidia has agreed to acquire for $12.9 billion. In London, Huang praised Nvidia-backed data-centre operator Nscale, saying it "could be the most valuable UK startup created in the last 10 years." The film says that a few days later, Microsoft pulled out of a deal with Nscale, citing the cost of electricity in the UK. In Stockholm, Huang headlined the kickoff of a Nvidia-backed sovereign AI supercomputer, with Spotify co-founder Daniel EkDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → in attendance. The narration cites estimates that the EU would need to spend at least $3 trillion by 2035 to be truly self-sufficient in technology.

The $100B bet: Chang asked at what point the industry's dependence on one company becomes a systemic risk. "We're probably the only AI company in the world that works with every AI company in the world," Huang said. "Well, they don't depend on us. They choose us." He described AI as a "five-layer cake" of energy, chips, infrastructure, models and applications, and said Nvidia now invests across all of them. The film says Nvidia has committed to spending about half a trillion dollars across the global AI industry. Asked about accusations of circular financing, Huang said the technology requires high capital spending, that it is rare to fund a company in this generation on $10 million and "not unusual" for one to need $10 billion, and that Nvidia is often an early or anchor investor but "not the lead investor" and "not the largest investor." "In all cases, we own less than 20% of the company," he said. "We've invested some, I guess, in the last five years, maybe close to $100 billion or something like that," which he said drew in at least five times as much from other institutional investors. The film says Nvidia sits at the core of companies including OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet | Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, SpaceX and Amazon.

China, and what came after: Asked whether the China market was shrinking, with companies such as DeepSeek prioritising Chinese hardware, Huang said: "Well, it's completely blocked from us today." He said he "did my best to inform the policymakers in the United States of the importance of engaging the Chinese market" and added, "I think we made a mistake, and this mistake is hard to unwind, but I did my best." He also said that "although we compete against China, they're not our enemies." The film says that after the interview was recorded, US intelligence reportedly identified Alice Wong, also known as Huang Lu or Alice HuangDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a former television journalist and an executive at Megaspeed InternationalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, as a person recruited by Beijing to target Huang. Megaspeed is described as one of the largest buyers of Nvidia chips in Southeast Asia, and one that US officials suspect of smuggling advanced chips to China. The film says President Trump was reportedly warned about the relationship before flying with Huang on Air Force One to China in May, and that Huang later admitted the affair. In a memo to employees quoted in the film, Huang wrote: "I owe my family and all of you an apology. I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did, but this has turned into something much bigger than an infidelity scandal." The film also says Bloomberg reported that in 2025 Nvidia intervened in a US government probe of suspected smuggling of AI chips by Megaspeed. The documentary says Huang is also reported to have had a relationship with an Nvidia executive who reports to him.

Safety and jobs: Chang told Huang that Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Elon Musk all say the industry should slow down. Huang said capability and safety "are not in conflict. They are in fact one." Pressed on reports that Anthropic's models could evade shutdown, he said claims that the systems cannot be contained are "just made up. Nonsense." "You can absolutely contain, you can absolutely monitor. Until you try to do it, don't tell me you can't do it." Asked whether Nvidia would stop selling to a lab that was doing something too dangerous, he said: "It's a hypothetical, but of course." He also said the biggest risk is developing agentic systems without containment and without monitoring. Chang recalled his line that there is a "0% chance" AI ends the world by 2030; he said he was "quite confident in the agency of people." On jobs, he said $400 billion to $600 billion had been invested in AI startups in the last six months, that AI "does create more jobs," and that "if AI makes us all more intelligent, I become more ambitious." He argued the economy and industries will get larger, comparing the AI infrastructure build-out to earlier 10-year cycles in PCs, the internet and phones, and saying the industry is "kind of two years into an infrastructure build out." The film notes more than 100 data-centre projects have been blocked or delayed in the US this year, and that CoreWeave, which is backed by Nvidia, had been hit over concerns about its debt. Huang, the film says, told reporters that CoreWeave's strength "is improving every day."

Succession: Chang noted that Huang's son and daughter work at Nvidia, as does his son-in-law, in robotics, and asked about talk that his daughter is in line to succeed him. "Well, first of all, I don't hope the job on her," Huang said, naming Spencer and Madison and adding that "they have to go earn it." He said he hopes the next CEO is already at the company, and that "20 years from now, I hope I stay healthy and I hope I continue to earn my keep." Then the line that gives the film its sting: "Just as I can be fired, the next CEO has to be hired. And I like it that way. You're always vulnerable, you're always earning it."

Why it matters: The film was meant as a portrait of a founder at the peak of the AI boom. Released in the middle of Nvidia's most serious leadership crisis, it becomes a record of how much of the industry's capital, infrastructure and optimism still runs through one person and one company, by Huang's own account.

Sources: The Rise and Reckoning of Jensen Huang, The Circuit with Emily Chang, Bloomberg Originals, 12 November 2026
Bloomberg, The Circuit