Nvidia's board of directors met on Wednesday night to decide the future of founder and chief executive Jensen Huang, after reports of a second alleged extramarital affair and preparations to remove him, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter. As of late Wednesday night, the board had issued no statement and Nvidia had announced no decision.
The meeting followed two reports that landed within minutes of each other on Wednesday. The New York Times reported that Huang, 63, had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, 48, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reports directly to him, citing five people who worked at the company. Two of them said the pair had been recorded behaving affectionately at a hotel in San Jose during Nvidia's GTC developer conference in March. The Times said it had not seen the footage, and neither Powell, Huang nor the company confirmed the account.
Minutes later, The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to oust Huang and could meet as soon as Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, Powell pulled out of a panel at the Milken Institute's Future of Health Summit in Washington, where she had been scheduled to speak on a panel titled "Engineering the Next Era of Human Health." Organisers told the panel's moderator, CNN's Meg Tirrell, that Powell would not appear. No reason was given.
Semafor reported that some directors favour chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive if Huang is removed, and that the board briefed the White House on its planned meeting, according to a senior administration official. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm to identify possible replacements and is considering appointing a temporary chief while it searches for a permanent successor. The full board has yet to decide, and Nvidia has not publicly confirmed any leadership change.
Investors reacted sharply. Nvidia shares fell about 8 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday, dropping 8.3 percent to $159.37 by 5:35 p.m. Eastern, and Nasdaq 100 futures slipped as much as 1 percent. Huang, who has run the company he co-founded for 33 years, owns about 3.6 percent of Nvidia's shares. The chipmaker, valued at roughly $4 trillion, has no obvious successor: Huang has said he does not believe in succession planning.
The board's deliberations come amid a widening inquiry. On November 8, the board announced an independent investigation, led by the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, into whether Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation after he acknowledged an extramarital affair with a businesswoman US officials have identified as a Chinese intelligence asset. The investigation is being headed by Joon Kim, a former US federal prosecutor. House lawmakers have also asked Huang to provide a closed-door briefing on the allegations, giving him until 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday to agree to a meeting or propose another date. Nvidia reports third-quarter results on November 17.
