Nvidia is reportedly planning to remove co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang after 33 years at the helm, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal. Sources cited by the newspaper indicate that the Nvidia board is meeting to determine Huang's future at the company that designs the chips powering the AI infrastructure boom.
The leadership crisis escalated after Huang acknowledged an extramarital affair with a woman identified by U.S. intelligence as a foreign intelligence operative. The governance situation deteriorated further when reporting from the New York Times revealed that Huang also maintained a relationship with an executive reporting directly to him.
Financial markets reacted swiftly to the management instability. Nvidia stock fell approximately 8% in after-hours trading, with the stock down about 11% over the past five days.
The prospect of an abrupt executive departure exposes structural vulnerabilities across the AI hardware supply chain. Huang maintains about 60 direct reports and has historically delegated very little operational control, creating an acute internal bottleneck. Nvidia currently operates without an obvious internal successor or a formalized succession plan, though reports indicate the board is engaging an outside firm to identify potential replacements.