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The story was broken by the New York Times. New York Times journalists Tripp Mickle and Ana Swanson got a tip from from "a tech industry contact"[1] in August. They worked sources and investigated until they were ready to break the story in October.

Based on the photos that have been popping up, the tech industry contact could have been any one of the comparatively large number of people in position to observe what was going on.

  [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/10/podcasts/the-daily/nvidia-jensen-huang-affair-chinese-spy-trump.html?showTranscript=1

Perhaps someone decided to leak it to the media now because it became clear that the US government was unwilling to take it seriously, despite the persistent warnings.

Or perhaps it's just the sheer accumulation of chance. The longer it's happening as an open secret that no one wants to talk about, the more likely that someone who thinks it's wrong will find out and speak out.

Moreover, the report by Culper Research apparently discussed these issues back in May.

I know it takes time for stories to pick up steam, but it's 6 months. Why did no one care until now?

Follow the shorts…

I feel it's very bizarre to call out Rubio in particular, it makes me feel like this comment is astroturfed

Seems pretty obvious: Whatever he did wrong was only recently discovered. “Exposing” his personal life that was never much of a secret to get him out of there is easy cover to avoid having to let the world know what he did wrong.

But while it is obvious he did something wrong, the question remains of what that is. Of course we’ll never find out. This will soon blow over and nobody will ever think of him again.

> It's quite clear to me folks like Secretary of State Marco Rubio very likely knew about these things taking place for quite some time.

Trump directly knew too, despite recent denials. He is talking about it here:

https://youtu.be/m2aC8lAOQbg?si=rqqSliGdLF4_Q663&t=1460

@24:20

He doesn't mention Jensen Huang by name, but he is definitely talking about him (only person who fits), and also basically admitting they used it as blackmail (comply or go to jail). Between his narcissism and his dementia Trump couldn't stop himself from talking about something he shouldn't have ever brought up in an interview.

The Trump administration was using this as leverage over Jensen for almost a year!

The important question is who then decided to eventually burn Jensen and lose that leverage, and why?

Not just the optics, but the liabilities and class action lawsuits if they are not acting on it. After all, A board's fiduciary duty is the legal and ethical obligation of board members to act in the best interests of the organization and its stakeholders.

People are primarily talking about the Chinese spy affair, but the impression I personally got on X was that the subsequently reported affair with a subordinate VP in Nvidia is what did him in.

Make no mistake, a lot of this is also lobbying and highly political. He's one of the few who was extremely vocal about open weight modals. Think about it, you run one of the largest AI (hardware) companies in the world and you're out there promoting open source models, which your home country is losing moat to, so the timing of this is not merely "oops, it's just a co-incidence". Anthropic is going IPO at this exact time - and they're known very well to invest millions into lobbying already (just google it), Google just released a new closed source model, Open AI too is cooking up stuff, and all of these companies need the closed source business model to win. What better way than to kill the vocal leader against their business model?

Well, personally, I hope the open weight models win despite all this lobbying.

I somehow doubt all these aren't connected.

Oh come on. Everyone knows these tech CEOs are distasteful humans, people just buy from them because they have little competition (from fellow evil tech CEOs).

The CEO's personality is irrelevant if they're selling something that's in high enough demand. Money matters more than anything.

This particular scandal is an issue for Nvidia because:

1. Actual espionage, national security, etc. is potentially in play - criminal charges cost money.

2. Liability from potential lawsuits around in-office affairs - civil suits cost money.

Many leaders and engineers at Nvida are multi-millionaires many times over, they don't need to be there, they love the culture, vision and leadership. With Jensen gone, that could all change. I'm sure many employees are looking at the exit now.

China won big with this one.

Was.

No it isn't. This fabricated reality is all about control. And that's why we have these totally fucked up societies and psychopath politicians who do not give a flying f about the populace. Because who can adhere to these standards? Psychos.

I don't like NVDA and Huang, but this ridiculous double standard that certain people adhere to is akin to a cult's thought process. You are the CEO, you cannot have emotions, you have to hide your personal life, you have to show outside how great of a person you are blablabla.

If you have good optics to the outside, well, you are our man. Oh, there was a chap called Jimmy Saville. He was such a sweet person, and he raped kids by the dozens. DOESNT MATTER! He had good optics. There you go, wallow in the mud, crazy f'rs and offer your children to the rapist.

At the end of the day he is just another human being. The same human being like anybody else. End of story. Rest is hyperbole and powerless people trying to exert some influence on an individual.... because of corpo skullduggery. Bleh.

Well you'd imagine after what the current US president has done, it seems like the standards for this to matter would have been fairly low.

When the share price is at max max any slight crosswind is going to knock it hard too. And this is a big one because a trifecta of scandal, the spy thing and him being ousted and so that brain and leadership and image being lost. Wouldn't be so bad on a value share probably (I invest in another scandal ridden CEO stock so I know the drill!)

With the recent midterm / AI crash, I'll leave this stock well alone. Might buy at sub 100 if panic sets in.

You spoke too soon about more affairs hah

I was watching Jensen's interview by Emily Chang a few hours ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW5s9Md4U2U

There's an increasing agreement about how big of a deal AI is among a growing number of tech luminaries, that if misused it has potential to be very dangerous to humanity. This calls for careful and measured advancement... it also calls for some level of coordination with big players, including China.

Jensen echoes similar sentiments in Emily Chang's interview.

I rue that nuanced opinions are going to brushed aside amidst the nationalist fervor in current ongoing media cycle.

If it were a female CEO being ostracized for having an affair she would clamor that "men do it all the time" and how sexist "society" is obsessed with controlling women's bodies.

>I hope people understand that the affairs are not the reason he is being fired - NVIDIA has supposedly been skirting the export ban

If you dissect the timeline of the events and various statements, I think the 2nd affair with a subordinate employee K Powell was the reason to fire Jensen Huang -- more so than the allegations of secretly selling to China.

This is the timeline:

  Nov 8 :  Jensen issues apology.  NVIDIA allows him to use nvidia.com for this

  Nov 8  :  The Board of Directors publicly backs him up with a "vote of confidence" by stating:  *"no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised" and that "The Board has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team."*  -- from https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/statement-from-nvidia-board-of-directors

  Nov 11 :  2nd affair gets exposed in the news

  Nov 11 evening :  emergency meeting of Board of Directors is called to fire Jensen Huang
  

Nov 8 was coordinated with carefully crafted communications showing that Jensen and BOD were aligned. Contrast with Nov 11 being chaos and an emergency meeting convened.

Reading between the lines, what probably happened is that Jensen didn't come totally clean with the board on Nov 8 and tell them about the 2nd K Powell affair. Instead, the board got totally blindsided and lost trust in him. (Is there another 3rd secret affair he's hiding from us?!?) It was impossible to keep Jensen under those circumstances.

The image of Nvidia advocating for exports of GPUs to china while compromised by an allegedly Chinese agent is the real issue here. Endless congressional hearings on that topic starting in Jan. The Nvidia corp still has to answer for that even when Jensen is out.

> the affairs are not the reason he is being fired

The second one -- affair with a direct report -- is what he is being fired for. This one is hard for the board to ignore as it directly violates HR rules.

As for the ban for national security reasons, the ban is not super useful because it only prevents hardware from being physically imported into China. If the hardware is physically located in Singapore and Chinese researchers use those machines remotely, the US does not ban that it. If so how meaningful is the ban?

Not the _only_ reason, sure. However, it's quite common when executives have an affair they will get fired. I think that's just the reality. If you publicly humiliate your family and the business, you're out...

Let’s be real here. Everyone making money out of NVIDIA was more than happy enough to go around the restrictions and see the prices go up due to Chinese demand.

Having these people saying otherwise is pure hypocrisy.

The first affair was possibly survivable, although the cost of survival would be high for all involved.

The second affair was fatal to Jensen Haung. An affair with a direct report is generally a no-no in modern business and would have opened Nvidia up for all kinds of liability issues if they knew in any capacity. If he stayed it would have made a mockery of their code of conduct rules and opened Nvidia up to further legal issues.

The U.S. has imposed such harsh semiconductor industry sanctions on China, tightly locking away scientific and technological achievements that will most likely shape the future of all humanity for the next hundred years through political means that change with every few-year election cycle. It's hard to imagine that in a community that constantly claims to champion freedom and progress, so many people would think from the perspective of the U.S. government and believe in baseless spy allegations, because anyone who knows NVIDIA’s history and Jensen Huang’s background should be able to see that this is a charge forcibly fabricated.

I agree that this is a more likely explanation, given the AI arms race between the US and China.

I think NVIDIA lose more things by firing Jensen.

>NVIDIA has supposedly been skirting the export ban put in place by the previous administration.

That's not the reason either.

They never did it in a way that was technically legal iirc. And the new administration allowed the exports later anyway and lifted the AI ban on July 2025.

Even she was a spy, the idea is that what? I can understand her snooping for fresh confidential info, in that, case, but what would her role be the sanctions? That just because he got her as gf, he made nvidia evade exports as a favor?

As if it was his personal bypass and not what the nvidia board wanted for the $$$?

They're likely worried about the optics of it, and what a Democrat administration, or increased power, would do to Nvidia stocks with such scandal as leverage.

I hope people understand that the china export is not the reason he is being fired.

He controlled the trade and price for a global asset more valuable than gold as a single person. Some people didn't want that, it's that simple.

I said this on the thread this morning/yesterday. It is impossible for JH to speak about China with any credibility going forward. That alone made it impossible for him to remain CEO. Add to that, everything he's said about China in the past will now be scrutinized and questioned if he was influenced in some way.

If it was just affairs, he could likely have survived this.

Why can't it be all of the above? I'm disturbed by the number of posts I'm seeing around social media downplaying the affairs as if this is normal behavior that should be encouraged or allowed. He slept with someone who worked directly under him, under what universe would he be allowed to stay at Nvidia? That's absurd.

NVIDIA also does tons of military and intelligence work, very sensitive stuff. The idea that the CEO had a significant espionage problem raises significant _criminal_ liabilities.

They were allowed to sell to china, just not their top models. It was widely known that china acquired those indirectly.

What changed is the publicity about the affair. So this is about the affair.

Exactly. Remember the Supermicro scandal? NVIDIA has been bypassing the ban at massive scale. Everybody knew.

It'll be a relative slap on the wrist. The US is not going to destroy one of the companies keeping it competitive on the AI landscape right now. Worst case, it is a heavy slap and some individuals go to jail, but the company will be fine.

But yeah, the affairs are probably just a last straw.

To me the fact that it was known for a year that the affair was happening, and nothing changed implies that this is more a publicity move rather than anything else. They had to make a change, improve their brand image. Probably nothing will change in how they sell their product, the rules they skirt.

Why? Because the government want to maintain the American advantage in GPU chips and AI? This move tips the scales in favour of China. Right now there is tens of billions of dollars of Nvidia GPUs sitting on the dock in Hong Kong because China government blocked them. They think it's more important to support their new domestic GPU industry than to have the best models today trained on nvida.

Links to the reporting?

“Sold to China” can mean a lot of things including legitimate entities in Malaysia/Singapore selling cloud computing to companies in those countries that then resell compute to entities in China. Export bans on gpus are inherently impossible to make work unless you police the eventual destination of every byte exiting a datacenter.

There does seem to be a sway in the reporting towards his relationship with an employee and not the whole trade ban and spy stuff. I'm not sure why that is

I hope you understand the affair with the spy does not strictly matter, but he is in fact being fired because of the affair with a subordinate.

Like everyone, they have a COC/sexual harassment policy, and that is basically always a firing offense in practice. They cannot place him above it, or else they would be in for infinite liability.

This is why literally nothing mentioned firing until that was discovered, and then it instantly became about firing him.

The fact that Nvidia was skirting the export ban was an open secret. So many outlets like NYT itself, Reuters, WSJ, etc have published reports about it starting over a year ago.

I'll plug our Pretrained episode from Monday here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N97DW8gfCnI - this chip export goes back years, through shell companies that are very easily traceable to Alibaba.

He was also favoring local open weight models in a world where frontier AI companies are lobbying the government for control. Could be one of the reasons why he was ousted.

What happens if all the money in the system circulating through AI companies turns out to be ill-gotten gains?

There's every reason to believe this is not true.

You could be right, but you're putting way , way too much faith in the board etc.

These people can be clowns. Don't over estimate how ridiculous, petty, thin skinned and arbitrary boards can be.

Yeah if he had a random affair with a waitress or something, it'd be a bit scandalous, but not firing-worthy.

Sleeping with a Chinese spy or subordinate turns a personal problem into a workplace problem.

I think it was obvious that the chips were making their way into China.

The problem is that Jensen destroyed Nvidia's plausible deniability.

> I hope people understand that the affairs are not the reason he is being fired

People refuse to understand it. Every single thread is full of the same comments. People are obsessed with culture wars.

He committed what looks like some light treason. The fact that he had an affair with a Chinese intelligence asset who helped the CCP bypass import restrictions is why he had to go.

If it were just about the export ban, then why leak the affairs? US intelligence (which serves US corporate power only) has decided to put this guy out to pasture by any means necessary. That's the reason for this faux moral outrage. They want to make sure there's no chance he makes it out the other side.

Presumably his replacement will be subservient "enough".

I’d also note that being complicit and not entirely aware of sanctions evasion -but being in a qualified position that should have been able to discern it- is sufficient for criminal charges and conspiracy. I spent a long time in trading and money movement, and this was the scared straight things our former federal prosecutor internal counsel would lecture us on. The bar for prosecutors in national security, sanctions, conspiracy, etc are very very low and this sort of relationship is a perfect foil. It exposes Nvidia to extreme risk, and Jenson even more so. And being cutoff from Nvidia now makes him prey without the support a major employer and driver of the economy could provide him.

The affair with a subordinate is totally a firable offense. It's what Brian Krzanich of Intel was fired for, after all.

This comment yesterday [1] indicated that Megaspeed was not on the blocked entity list, but that NVidia voluntarily hasn't sold to them since June 2025.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50464121

We've had insatiable demand for Nvidia excluding China, I doubt they would have run that kind of legal risk.

They did not even need to sell them physically to China. Many of them ended up in Malaysian datacenters that rented them to China.

Gamer Nexus looked at it like a year ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3xQaf7BFI

History will look back at this and see Jensen was right to do this.

Underestimating China under this export ban is a huge historical blunder of epic proportions. China will develop all their own chips and put everyone out business eventually.

One of the affairs could have been a means to get GPUs to China despite the ban. So they are at least intertwined.

    > Nvidia has supposedly been skirting the export ban put in place by the previous administration

(1) actively assisting/violating the export ban. There is no evidence, nor any ongoing gov't investigation regarding this accusation.

(2) buyers redirecting legitimate, legal purchases to mainland Chinese companies. There is evidence and multiple ongoing gov't investigations by (a) Department of Justice, (b) Federal Bureau of Investigation, and (c) Department of Commerce.

I cannot find any senior Nvidia executives that have been charged with crimes for directly assisting/violating the export ban. That said, there may be ongoing gov't investigations, but I could not find any public press about them.

I think thats correct, I was at GTC in berlin a couple of weeks ago, a number of Chinese firms that are on the export control list were present and had booths… so perhaps this was all rather blatant.

well...and I am not generally a theorist but

dark ops [well, maybe these are really very bright out in the open ops...!!!] may have taken an opportunity and now the operation is at its close, the data is reduced, and the devices utilized are being obsoleted, and operatives burned

we US citizens should not let naivete overrule the gravity of this technology race, on the order of the nuclear arms race

Nvidia has always sold to China through the back door, that ain’t gonna change even with a new CEO…

It will be interesting to see if there are criminal proceedings. If you or I violated ITAR or CMMC/NIST 800 there would be.

The affair is what led to this, demonstrating why it actually should matter if your CEO is having one. Ethics and trust should matter.

Do we know yet what the potential consequences may be? Legally or from a market/business standpoint?

They didn’t sold the chips directly to China, they sold them to Megaspeed and they sold the compute to China.

Daniel Dumbrill on youtube[1] does a good job decomposing this.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC3Kh40dEQY

The thing is China itself has no incentive to have their companies skirt the export ban. The whole saga is just completely ironic and incredibly unorganic. The alleged "spy" and her firm Megaspeed was doing export circumventing mechanisms to China not because the CCP was allegedly pushing her to do so, in fact it was a counter-reaction to how restrictive the Chinese customs became to importing Nvidia while the corresponding customers are hungry for that compute that is piling up in the ports. China is doing a zero-sum policy where every American chip that gets passed to their tech companies is one less domestic/chinese, which equates less money for R&D and catch up.

So something very strange going on here, along with the timing, in time where Anthropic is preparing for an IPO and briefly after the midterms where the median voter rejected AI wholesale. I suspect this might have been a long game to turn the man down that is standing for open-source and the freedom to build AI. Heck epstein was having a ring of elites diddling minors and nothing scandalous came out of it.

All the regulators that kickstarted this dumb export controls in 2022, which in-turn made the american AI-stack weaker vs China, while also using doomer-fud about safety must feel glorious right now.

Sad day for developers.

The previous and current administration.

This is obviously something that has been postponed for after the midterms.

> Whether you agree or disagree with the ban, it exists and Jensen&NVIDIA are in a world of trouble if this comes to light.

Law has to be enforced by human beings to be meaningful. Donald Trump, who is the one who put the export control in place and has the power to make any legal trouble vanish, has very loudly signaled that he does not care and Jensen/Nvidia will not be in any hot water.

I think they were selling to Malaysian shell companies to China.

China doesn't even want Nvidia chips. They're holding up hundreds of thousands of smuggled cards at Hong Kong customs. Many Chinese companies want to take the easy shortcut of using Nvidia, but the Chinese govt wants Chinese companies to go through the pain of helping the domestic chip industry develop.

Plus the fact that there's absolutely no evidence that the lady is a spy. All media report anonymous sources but treat the allegations as fact. Singapore said their investigation of the lady is not due to spying, but no western media picked up that story. The lady traveled to Taiwan with her Hong Kong passport, and the Taiwanese govt also said they have no evidence she's a spy. The Chinese spy agency just started investigating her due to all the commotion (likely for smuggling chips, which China also doesn't want, see above), and also has no idea who she is. Despite all this, the public still treats the spy allegations as a fact.

Jenssen Huang is a victim. Those who wanted to get rid of him and set this up, have succeeded. But everyone is under the mistaken belief that this hurts China somehow. China doesn't give a damn. In the mean time, all Chinese Americans lose. Jenssen is not the first such victim, and won't be the last.

Where the hell is your source for this?

I think the affair with the Chinese CEO is a considerable factor. Jensen cannot possibly maintain any plausible deniability over Megaspeed's alleged diversion of chips to China and his role therein.

The second affair with an employee likely just dealt a death blow (if it hadn't already been dealt) to Jensen in terms of his ability to ride the crisis out.

Being compromised kinda does seem like a reason to be fired. It seemed well known he was doing it since there are plenty of photos over a few years? So it’s more she was a honeypot.

It is legal for Chinese companies to buy US neocloud time. These toothless restrictions were poorly constructed and unenforceable law. The extent to which nvda was supposed to self police is unclear. I find it hard to believe any binding evidence of direct sales will be found.

Does it mean we will have mass produced cheaper graphics cards? Akin to flagship killer mobile phones and other hardware? Sounds good.

If they really did, I hope they at least go to prison for a while. I say at least because they actually should be court martiall-ed and spend their next 30 years in a military cell.

I mean having an affair with someone who works below in the company hierachy, is also a huge problem (if the thing about second affair is correct)

> NVIDIA has supposedly been skirting the export ban put in place by the previous administration.

Is rumor and conjecture enough?

Eric Swalwell was not punished and committed something worse than Jensen Huang, because he was a government official. He even ran for Governor and the only reason he as forced to resign was because of a different sexual abuse case.

If our own government officials can't face justice, why should the CEO of a company?

You are exactly right, and it’s depressing how dumb most people are for not understanding this.

I thought the export ban was lifted by this Administration. Trump publicly announced it months ago.

Export ban is the wrong call

> Jensen&NVIDIA are in a world of trouble if this comes to light

Are they though? As long as they're in the good graces of Trump, is the Justice Department going to do anything about it?

Trump is on record saying Jensen should not be fired.

That suggests no treason.

How do you know?

Um hard negative to what you are saying. It is absolutely fundamental to the issue -- its compounds the issues around assessing Jensen's judgement.

This story has more to it that will come to light .. I'm sure of it.

The affairs are absolutely part of it, they show a dishonest pattern of behavior.

I am not sure I can agree. Perhaps this was the underlying reason. Perhaps others wanted to frame him and launched a media campaign. But from what I can see, at the least on the surface, to me it looks as if he was fired for liking too many women at the same time, at the least one of which might be a possible spy. This may all be fake-reasons on top to cover underlying real causes, but to me right now it looks as if the girls cost him the job here.

Alternate perspective:

bipartisan bill[1] needed to decapitate[2] opposition[3] to expanded controls/moratoria and install “neutral” caretakers[4] until passage

[1] https://www.semafor.com/article/09/10/2026/bipartisan-ai-saf...

[2] https://x.com/brianchau57/status/2120745928722087948

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49035303

[4] current CFO Kress or former Apple CEO Tim Cook (suggested by president in social media post)

As though the Board had no idea of this, and are suddenly acting oh gosh this is the first we've heard of the phantom SG revenue! Time for Jensen to go. Nah, not buying it. Many of the board have been w JH since the early 1990s. This is because his reckless disregard for the company and his years-long relationship with a Chinese spy.

With a strict ban of chips to China, Chinese companies will not have enough compute. Without enough compute, they are not going to be able to release new open weight models.

That means American companies will have to rely on Anthropic. And interestingly, Anthropic loves to tell users what they can or can not do, such as "The training of Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2 included measures to limit advances in a narrow set of capabilities that could most directly accelerate AI development, like accelerator kernel optimization".

Interesting times

> ”it is hard for me to avoid the conclusion that NVIDIA sold to China despite the export ban.”

Nvidia sold to companies in Singapore, and then “somehow” the chips got redirected or forwarded on to China.

It’s been known/suspected for years that this was happening, but this Chinese spy scandal does suggest that execs at Nvidia might have known more about what has been going on than they’ve previously admitted.

Him taking the stance of "we should be allowed to sell all the GPUs to China" was bad enough in itself.

Now that the possibility of him being compromised by an actual Chinese spy AND the possibility of Nvidia actually sanction-busting to ship to China regardless are on the table? Both at the same time, no less?

Yeah, that kind of liability is bonkers. Jensen might be too vital to load him into a cannon and fire him into the sun, but I'm not at all surprised that Nvidia wants him gone from the big post.

> From all the reporting I've read, it is hard for me to avoid the conclusion that NVIDIA sold to China despite the export ban.

I thought this was like, basically an open secret? Like... I'm sure they stayed within the technical letter of the law? Except if any of the laws required them to not be grossly negligent and not be cartoonishly naive. So that they can later argue that they couldn't possibly have known that chips going to South East Asia were being resold to China?

I dont think its more soo about the ban as China itself has 'officially' blocked the chips that were being licensed as exportable. I think its more of the asks that were being made by the NATSec and Amodie aligned actors (see the pod he had with Dwarkesh ), to ho tighter and more aggressive. Basically Jensen was sort of the brake on the impulsive ideas getting thrown around on how to 'win' AI and create a moat against all latecomers.

In any case pushing him out allows a freer hand for their shenanigans , so well know shortly what the asks were that he pushed back on (kill switches in chips?) if they get announced.

Also his role will be difficult to fill , seeing as hes had biz/gov relations going back decades with all relevant players in the semi industry from design ,litho,fabs to packaging etc.

China is a gigantic market. A company that profit hungry will find it supremely difficult to resist doing business with China. It is almost guaranteed, that they did in some indirect ways sell to China. It's also not like people like Jensen care one bit about the USA. What they care about is pure profit of their own kingdom. Uhm, I mean company, of course.

I think this episode proves one thing:

It would have been simpler and more profitable to sell China the GPUs.

One woman from the CCP just burned a couple of trillion out of your 401Ks. Have you said thank you even once? Are you sick of winning yet?

Well the only thing super weird is the timeline - USA bans exports, China (very soon after) bans IMPORTS! And then there's a company which keeps doing trade under the nose of the potentially two most powerful nation-states and their secret service sources. This is super fishy, really I don't buy nobody knew nothing, only for a "lucky" journalist to figure out the whole thing...

I would be so, so surprised if the US government / CIA / etc wouldn't know at all that NVDA was selling to China and skirting the export ban in a meaningful way.

In 50 years from now, some declassified documents will maybe shed light on this specific incident.

I would imagine it being a form of "So, China, we'll let our Jensen guy sell you X in chips, and in return, you do Y in relation to Russia, and Z in relation to Taiwan. Oh, and we need to use one of your spies, in case someone f*cks up".

Very much agreed, the second this became clear his position was untenable. He will surely have launched his unicorn by the end of December regardless, I’d be surprised if this had any tangible repercussions outside the divorce court.

Very much dislike that this in large part is overshadowed by his adultery, which should be considered separate and treated totally private, at least for the sake of his family.

Is this remotely believable, that one CEO can surreptitiously work around both the government and his own company to sell restricted goods at volume? If this were real you'd have to lobotomize the entire management structure, because there are a lot of people that would know and know better and that they'd face jail time. And maybe merge it with some other company quickly so it doesn't completely collapse because of the immediate mass firings to try and sway prosecutions toward individuals and not the destroy the entire entity.

I'd be more inclined to believe the spy thriller narrative if he sent the RTL of their top designs to China. Selling goods is not a one chief op.

Sold to china and gave trump, whitcoff and kushner I think, 15% of sales. Almost like a bribe.

Lots of this has been known since may, and it sounds like the president was informed she was a spy a year ago.

One wonders if this happened now since the Dems took control of the investigation bodies.

If they had not, would they have kept right on as is?

Well...we dont know half the story yet, one and two and three... "Jensen Huang had ‘intimate relationship’ with second employee" - https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/12/nvidia-jensen-huang-ceo-live...

Biggest valuation ever will turn into biggest investor lawsuit ever. The music on the AI circular deals is about to be broken by a feminine spell. This has Lord of the Rings all over it...

NVDA at $151 right now...I never expected to see the day...

Yeah, this has to be related to the export ban. It's too much of a coincidence that the woman happens to run a shell company that funnels NVIDIA chips to China.

It's just unlikely that an affair would nuke his CEO's position.

That’s the excuse, it isn’t the reason.

The reality is a lot of people want to ensure only approved “safe and aligned” models are trained and executed, and nvidia were, by far, the biggest promoter of the idea of freedom. This will be done by forcing you to rent capacity from approved providers that monitor and watermark everything.

Huggingface are almost certainly next in line for a push to lock down. For child safety, obviously.

Oh, it's not the repeated violations of sexual conduct with an employee, and a spy, and likely more? A CEO who is that dumb to risk his and the company trust isn't worth it. Look, a trillion already wiped out. When employees say "how dumb could he be", you know the board and major investors are saying that too.

I just find it weird that trump loses the midterms and suddenly this happens. Might be a coincident but feels very sus.

Did your TV tell you that? I hope you realize that there is absolutely no proof of the import ban having been skirted. The FBI has been investigating Alice Huang and Megaspeed since 2024 and all they have is a few GPUs still being unboxed at their Malaysian data center.

Like the film ‘War Dogs’ but with GPUs and affairs instead of weapons and drugs. :D

The strange situation, however, is that the current administration, specifically Trump, loves Jensen for he thinks that they're kindred spirits: both incredibly successful businessmen at the top of the world and at the top of their game (this is from Trump's perspective).

It's an odd situation where, yes, they're breaching national security mandates, but they're also being protected by the man at the top of the organization that makes those national security mandates.

We're living in a comedy film, where the outcome of said comedy film has an effect on the world economy, so we're actually living in a tragedy film.

That's how corruption skews the reality that the powerless are forced to live within.

It’s not the side chicks, it’s the side chips.

I think it's all the leather jacket.

If an executive suddenly starts wearing a leather jacket, watch out!

them skirting the ban is the worst kept secret in the world... was it even a secret?

NVIDIA's latest chips were also on an export ban for several Middle Eastern countries ("security" theater). That's about the time the UAE's sovereign fund invested a large sum in Cerebras. They were still able to get the chips by way of Kuwait, which is a friendly Middle Eastern state.

Of course, not a year went by before the UAE and Saudi invested heavily in the Trump crypto fund and, very coincidentally, the ban was lifted.

Fear not, Cerebras managed to get another investment from OpenAI!

As if rules have been enforced since 2025 right?

So it was just a coincidence that the affairs came out at the same time?

Well, you say that, but the perception is he hasn't got sacked for circular financing, nor for the providing of sanctioned components (supposedly they went to third countries, not China, so legal). But he got sacked for two affairs.

This seems very silly.

In all likelihood he got sacked for all those things, the affairs just were a convenient excuse.

What board would admit two thirds of their revenue is imaginary money. It's much better to sack a CEO for being "unfaithful to his wife".

> national security reasons

We've really run this term into the ground, haven't we? They don't even bother to try to convince us that China wants to hurt us anymore before making our lives shitty for it.

The timing is politically important though; shifts headlines from

"Trump/GOP lost their ass in midterms!" and "Dems intend to investigate GOP/Trump!"

Also provides news channel attacks on Dems; Congress should be looking into national security issues over here in CEO land! Not dividing Congress with partisan hackery!

Important to call out the social engineering going on among all the tribal groups.

Pretty sure he was fucking a Chinese spy though... so...

Yeah Jensen Huang is secretly Chinese.

>I'd love to be wrong

wong?

I mean, an undisclosed affair with the CEO of a large customer is also a pretty big conflict of interest, regardless of natsec concerns…

They could not have done any of the export ban skirting without the complicity or outright cooperation of the administration.

Remind me: when did Huang direct NVDA funds to the Trump ballroom fund?

> supposedly

According to who?

Jensen is Taiwanese. Nvidia's chips are made in Taiwan, as are all the most advanced chips in the world -- including the chips in Apple and AMD products -- by TSMC. China wants to re-absorb Taiwan into itself, partially because they cannot match TSMC's geometries and they desperately need those geometries.

Speculation here, but it's conceivable that China gave Jensen an ultimatum: Give us your chips and we'll delay invading your homeland for a little while longer. Of course this would have been implied since China never says anything so direct.

Do you think he might get the death sentence for treason?

He ALSO slept with a direct report, which would get most of us fired too.

A lot of people in this industry have gotten it into their heads over the last 25 years that if you create enough value, you get to ignore things like "rules", "laws" and "common sense".

Part of me is hopeful after this. Huang did something that was, at the very least, profoundly stupid, and just short of treason at worst. However, I'm also filled with dread, because I know that this means that there will be even more of an effort by founders to make sure they're immune from consequences from boards if they go public. You already see this at Meta and with Zuckerberg.

We need real reforms on corporate governance that make this sort of situation - a board able to control the C-suite - the norm, not the exception.

national security hoaxes. When was the last time China attacked the USA? compared to say our best ally and friend Israel that sunk the USS Liberty.

Fuck no. Jensen did no such thing. He actually hasn’t been charged with a single crime. You’re outright hallucinating here.

The board is voting him out because they can AT any TIME.

If the board liked him, they would wait for the charges to go through. But they don’t like him. Tons of people cheat on their wives and husbands and I’m sure even the fucking board has people that have.

The board doesn’t like him and has been waiting for a way to oust him while not looking incompetent. Why they don’t like him I don’t actually know.

Maybe because he’s Asian? Maybe this is an internal op by the US government to get someone else up there? I don’t know. But I can guarantee that everything your reading is a cover story. There are underlying forces and motivations here at work that we are not able to know.

yup, my NVDA puts are printing hard rn.

Can you imagine if it were a female CEO fired for the same thing? Oh how the accusations of sexism and double standards and how she doesn't have to report to the board what she does with her body. The argument writes itself.

How naive do you have to be to believe that Congress actually cares about that? They don’t care and happily watch their shares rise in price.

If the second affair didn’t come out, this wouldn’t be a discussion.

The rumor is

Trump knew about this in late 2025 and decided not to act.

The reasoning is believed to be because of the idea that if China didn't get Nvidia chips, it would just develop it's own chips faster. So holding the belief that China would end up in the same spot no matter what, it would be preferable to get them to pay Nvidia along the way.

Delving a bit deeper into conspiracy

It's also possible that Trump saw it as a silent favor to Jinping, who took the opportunity to return the favor months later by cutting Chinese oil purchases. One hand washes the other and all that.

I don't think so.

I think it was the affair with the direct report that did him in.

That's a bigger no-no than selling to spies, especially when the administration knew about it and did nothing.

>NVIDIA has supposedly been skirting the export ban put in place by the previous administration.

Of course they are why wouldnt they.

>NATIONAL SECURITY REASONS

Clipper Chip Mark 5 nonsense.

>From all the reporting I've read, it is hard for me to avoid the conclusion that NVIDIA sold to China despite the export ban. I'd love to be wrong

This was blatantly obvious. Do we really think Malaysia was using Billions in GPUs on some secret AI project?

And yet from the reporting Trump okayed the sale so Nvidia argues they had a license to export from the President. Lutnick was okay with it too apparently and State didn't get a vote. If the reporting is accurate, then I think Nvidia gets zero blowback from the sale.

Elon Musk has an AI bot generating explicit images without consent, regardless of age, yet nobody's firing him.

While Jensen seems like an egomaniac who deserves what happened to him, there's a part of me that feels some China hawks had fingers in his firing, it must not sit well with them than America's most valuable company is not in the hands of the old guard.

There is zero possibility than Jensen Huang faces any serious consequences for this. NVidia is too big and Huang is too wealthy. This administration in particular would never prosecute that. And, even if they did, a pardon is only $1-3 million anyway.

I believe it was the affair with the married subordinate that was the real problem. There's a huge amount of legal exposure for NVidia with that. With the Chinese spy he can portray himself as the victim. As I've said elsewhere, with billionaire corporate security and the support of the US government, It's astounding to me that this happened at all.

Also I'm reminded of this quote [1]:

> If you find two ants in your kitchen, the best estimate of the total number of ants in your kitchen is not two

[1]: https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2084856543561093535

The ban was lifted and fees were applied so there were plenty of legitimate ways to sell. I hate how inaccurate hn has become.

Let's cut the crap, it's a coup because he is in favor of the open-weight ecosystem and doesn't want to restrict models at the firmware level. Anthropic is in large part behind this.

Except the administration has known about them skirting it since day 1.

So it’s no longer about national security. What changed now compared to 2 years ago to make Trump care? Did Jenson reduce SpaceX’s allocation?

> Whether you agree or disagree with the ban, it exists and Jensen&NVIDIA are in a world of trouble if this comes to light.

...maybe. Or maybe not. Consistency in application of the law is not exactly at an all-time high right now.

Oh please, nothing at all will happen to them ...

NVIDIA is important and Jensen's a billionaire ... we're talking a little bit of media scrutiny for a few weeks, a little embarrassment for Jensen, some heartache for his family, and that's it. This will then be consigned to the footnotes of history.

His PR company right now are just saying, say nothing, lay low, we'll handle it.

I still think it would have been far easier for Jensen if he'd given the lady a horse. I understand that's the going rate in the US right now.

It may well be that it's his private life and it doesn't have much to do with things, but it is a contributing factor. The skirting of export bans was the reagent, but the infidelity is the catalyst that is making it much bigger.

CEO is supposed to be a high integrity position despite most tech CEOs trying to pretend that is not the case. If this person cannot be loyal to those closest to him, how can he be loyal to the company or shareholders?

And, there is no spy business. They just want a more compliant CEO. What a *hit show.

So many HN folks defending Huang's actions as "just an affair" - what an epic reading comprehension fail. Yes there is an affair, and that's what grabbed the initial headlines. But just read a paragraph or two and you'll find the espionage story.

For reference, the US has sentenced violators of export laws to decades of prison or even execution in extreme cases (when the Rosenburgs leaked nuclear secrets in 1953, they were sentenced to death). It's just shy of treason, legally. This is maybe one of the largest and most consequential intelligence breaches in history. Anyone who thinks this about an extramarital affair really isn't paying attention. Buckle up, its gonna get bumpy.

Everybody should be against the export ban. It's laughable to claim that it is for "national security", it's blatant protectionism to cover US AI companies for the fact that they operate at monumental losses. Any country in the world should be allowed to buy the hardware they need to run AI, if they need it, and if the roles were reversed the US should also be allowed to buy tech from other countries. Graphic cards aren't nuclear bombs, and AI is a multi-use core technology every nation on earth should have access to. So far, China has made a far better impression in that respect than the US. At least they have published open weight models.

The future will be commoditized local AI anyway, so it doesn't matter in the long run. I just needed to rant a bit about the US hypocrisy in that matter.

[flagged]

This makes a lot of sense.

I don't think AMD, Broadcom, Google would try to get rid of Jensen because he's an advocate for opening up the AI chips market to the world and China. Even Google is trying to position itself as an AI chips seller.

It's OpenAI/Anthropic/Meta that stand to benefit hugely by getting rid of Jensen. For one, open weight models benefit Nvidia and hurt OpenAI/Anthropic. For another, AI chips are very much supply constrained. Jensen wants AI chips to be supply constrained by opening up the market more but OpenAI/Anthropic do not.

It looks like the spy narrative is collapsing, Alice Huang isn't even a spy in the first place ...

I guess now that Jensen is out, it's safe to backtrack: "Guys, by the way, she's not a spy, sorry we made you think that!"

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/11/12/politics/alice-huang-us-i...

And so China sent in their best spy.

A conspiracy to leak bad behavior is not much of a conspiracy…

> block inference for unsigned and registered open-models in the firmware of modern GPUs. Anthropic and others are pushing hard on this

For real? Anthropic sounds more evil that my wildest imagination. If true, I hope this kind of evil company gets destroyed sooner than later.

It's obviously the biggest concern.

Either through technical means, or simpler: by law for American providers. It's hard to believe the administration was not aware of Jensen's affiliations all this time. And time is pressing for Anthropic and OpenAI.

Only conjectures for now, time will tell

Is there a source for this? I googled it and this was claimed to be satire

Yeah, this is the biggest concern that I have regarding this whole story.

Of course it's about building an oligopoly of frontier companies controlled by the deep state.

It's sad that people talk here about some personal affairs when it's clearly about governmental control, but it's not the first time a scandal is used as a weapon.

> I hope this won't change NVIDIA's refusal to block inference..

lol had to read this several times due to all the negatives

finally got it - "I hope NVIDIA continue to allow inference..."

By the such a restriction goes into effect, we'll be buying less expensive Chinese GPUs without such execution controls.

Definitely, expect future GPUs to run only signed LLM models with mandatory online attestation and reporting.

Of course it will. That's the entire point of this. It has nothing to do with an affair.

It would be a great thing for the economy. So many sectors are underinvested right now because capital has been stowed away into these companies valuations. Imagine 6T dumped in any other industry and it would be a generational step change event. For reference that's ballpark like 3x the valuation of the entire American biotechnology industry, all in one company. Talk about opportunity cost.

What's the downside of that for the economy? It seems like it would be the market becoming more efficient, cutting down on margins and so on. Bringing Nvidia back to earth might open up cheaper hardware for other companies to work with and accelerate AI anyway.

Doesn't this situation demonstrate how bonkers it is to pin the fortunes of the stock market and potentially the entire economy on the behavior of one person?

This could've been said of Cisco in the telecom bubble days. Or Nortel. Or a handful of other key players who were all inflating that bubble and playing games with their financials that made the bursting of the bubble worse.

Pumping billions of dollars, the source of which is obscured, into it looks like a cut out, is not just a national security problem. It undermines confidence in the numbers that you claim are the basis of shareholder value.

what kind of argument is this?

the stock value just represents what people think the company is (or will be) worth, them selling products at 50% margin is what brings the money, the stock value doesn't give NVIDIA extra cash (unless they're selling or leveraging their own stock reserves to get even more cash?). And definitely shareholder value is not the economy.

and also, how is the efficiency bad now? surely that allows for innovation and other companies and people to get cheaper hardware (assuming they somehow have to lower their margins because Jensen left, still don't get that argument)

NVDA losing 90% would bankrupt the entire AI sector and plunge US into a deep recession.

It's not just a chip company. Those trillions of value represent bets across the entire economy. When the casino goes bankrupt, all bets are off.

Giving Jensen credit for creating literally all of the value from Nvidia seems really over the top. He happened to be running the biggest GPU company during the biggest GPU boom ever. Sure he had an impact on the numbers and the timing, but if Jensen had never been born someone else would be heading a giant chip company around this period of time that saw it's stock take off like a rocket ship. This would happen even if the counterfactual CEO was incompetent.

  Nvidia losing 50% of its value from its peak means it’s still a $3 trillion company. What if it loses 90%? Then it’s the size of Intel which we generally agree is an important part of the industry.

> Jensen has created more shareholder value than nearly any human on earth.

Nonsense. Nvidia's employees created that value, not Jensen. Jensen personally is all but certainly responsible for almost none of the value created, just like in every other company. CEO worship is absurd.

Like it's an extremely common sentiment when working for a large company to look at the SVP or CEO and go "that person is a dumbass, everyone in charge is a dumbass". Yet when looking at other companies somehow we forget about that and put the companies success on the CEO or top level execs. Instead of remembering "no, it's probably the small army below them figuring out how to manage upwards to prevent the idiot in charge from tanking everything"

If efficiency is a risk for the economy then the economy is of course. Hopefully the correction can be soft and not a catastrophic pop. Maybe a slight cooling of Nvidia, caused by isolated factors, can help without crashing the whole sector.

surely the telegraph was the biggest value creator ever?

Sounds like a perfect fix for inflationary pressures to be honest - at least when it comes to assets and equities. Takes trillions off the board, stops the money machine cycle, and only impacts equity holders. Probably missing something here but that seems about right to me.

Jensen created some shareholder value, but in reality it's the AI labs (and crypto before that) that led to the huge valuation. None of this is his making, he just got lucky.

Any other idiot in his place would have made the same amount of money.

The stock market isn't the economy.

I'm a normal person with a beating heart and conscience, so I don't give a damn about how much shareholder value someone has ever created, and I never will.

And poof just like that the myth of the founder led company being untouchable has imploded. All other founder led CEOs will be watching this closely.

Alternatively if the company tanks the board will have a reckoning similar to the OpenAI debacle.

Don't worry, it took Intel a decade to fall from dominance. Nvidia probably has another 10 good years left. This gives us just enough time to see if China's Huawei is all talk or actually has what it takes.

On paper, sure.

Let's find out if the money exists next week when everyone tries to cash in.

I don't care about shareholder value. There is Schaudenfreude in seeing an AI/tech billionaire go down.

Monopolies are a plague on healthy markets.

  Jensen has created more shareholder value than nearly any human on earth.

  I think the real risk for the economy, the AI industry, and the US is that Nvidia becomes JUST another company. 
  ...
  But if this cycle stops and efficiency wins in the market (lower margins, more competitors, more options), then Nvidia goes back to where they were

What exactly have any of us regular people gotten from more Nvidia shareholder value? More expensive chips and AI slop?

What on earth are you talking about. The exponential growth in the 1990s, percentage wise, far outpaced the AI bubble. Go look at Intel, Microsoft, lucid, etc from the dot com boom. This is the problem with 20-somethings’ hot takes on the market: no history.

This slavish devotion to shareholder value above all else is pretty gross.

He cheated, multiple times, he is scum for that.

He seems to have consorted with a spy and evaded export bans. He is a criminal for that.

Oh, but he made people a lot of money? All good! /s

Throwing all morals and ethics out the window because of the eCoNoMy is insane.

The cult of personality around CEOs is unhealthy.

And we get to buy GPUs again in normalized prices. How's that bad for the economy exactly?

Nvidia stock price is now lower than it was a year ago. Has been declining for about 6 months, highly volatile, with a step sell off starting a month ago.

Cisco's stock price was similarly very high during the dotcom boom, but then collapsed, and took 17 years to build back up.

The thing people keep forgetting is nvidia makes graphics cards. Not CPUs, not a range of different products. Graphics cards. With a software moat. Their only business advantage is that people currently want a lot of their graphics cards and are currently dependent on their software. All that can be competed against. China is already putting out their own cards. Google has TPUs. AMD makes both CPUs and GPUs. The memory prices will soon fall as more capacity comes online.

It's practically a certainty that this stock price will keep falling. They're valuable, but in a competitive market, likely not 10x more valuable than their $17 stock price in 2022. When they fall harder so will the AI economy.

>>> seem to seriously believe this is actually about cheating on his wife

Sleeping with subordinates exposes the company to risk from employment-related lawsuits. He'd be in just as much trouble if he'd done that while single.

He didn’t resign until after it was known he was having a second affair with a direct report. That’s a huge liability for a sexual harassment lawsuit

> serious criminal charges

I’ll believe it when I see it. In the wake of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, a single low level executive was prosecuted during the whole ordeal.

I doubt any GPUs were sold to China because of this woman.

China just needed her to sleep with Jensen, so they could get him fired. Nvidia is at a loss without him. Knock Nvidia down a peg.

If China wanted more Nvidia GPUs you really think sexy spy was their strategy? You think China is upset right now they lost their sexy spy? No, this went all according to plan for China - Jensen is gone, and a weaker Nvidia remains.

This is like Apple losing Jobs. The company remains, but the vision is gone.

Everybody has a responsibility to uphold rule of law in any democracy. I'm tired of the narrative that U.S. companies are helpless entities that can only seek profit at the expense of everybody else. Ok then, if it was profitable to wipe out the entire planet with a nuclear war (Vault-tech) would you be fine with a company doing so?

I think your article reference another company (New Matrix) and not the one of Alice Huang (Megaspeed).

So we're potentially looking at a much different story, where the government took a bribe to ignore or enable an end run around an export ban. "CEO had affairs" is a far less damaging story to the United States than "our laws and national security are for sale".

Your allegations are unfounded. No one but a few people really know what was going on, and one certainty is that the current us administration isn’t going to take the blame for it.

The question isn't whether NVIDIA skirted an export ban. Companies are permitted to sell certain quantities of certain chips to certain Chinese companies.

The issue is that the _optics_ look suspicious if newly formed companies without proper vetting were able to receive very large quantities of these chips (either directly from NVIDIA or routed through shell companies linked to Alice Huang).

Where there's smoke there may not be fire, but the prevailing perspective I see is "needs more information"

> treasonously sold chips to China? It was done legally with the US government taking a cut

This is still treason, just with additional players.

Everyone is responsible for following the laws. Just because a corrupt official looks the other way, doesn't mean you can't later be charged with breaking the law.

I wonder if he was skirting the cuts he was supposed to be giving to the US government?

He used his influence to get the US government to do this. It's not like profit maxing takes priority over national security and laws. It's a vector of attack properly used by China.

It's not clear from the article you linked whether MegaSpeed was an approved buyer of NVidia chips or not.

> Wtf why is everyone assuming Nvidia skirted an export ban

Because the woman he has an affair with happens to run a shell company that funnels chips to China and skirts the export ban. What a coincidence, huh?

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that.

We can and should hold both to task.

Jensen's job as a CEO was to generate revenue. He was doing "sales" using the reverse-honeypot strategy. He got the chips sold, they were permitted by Lutnick, he came home, shook hands with daddy Trump. My god, what a way to create shareholder value. The revelations of the other indiscretions were the 2nd and 3rd wave assaults in case he was withering the 1st attack of the classic tried and true "alleged spy lover" offensive. The drip drip leaks (NYT+WSJ+FT we see you) were timed after the midterms when it became clear that Trump had no more linebackers to defend the line. Jensen had no fighting chance at that point.

porque no los dos?

> with the US government taking a cut

Historically, this is not a guarantee that the conduct is question is legal.

Because a Hacker News is autistic and can’t read between the lines

lol reading comprehension isn't your main skill is it? maybe you can readmaxx or learnmaxx or trymaxx to understandmaxx what the fuckmaxx your talkingmaxx about

I think the point is that whether he did or didn't, there's so much smoke now, that Nvidia is going to be spending the next few years getting drilled by absolutely every law enforcement agency and government. Even if it genuinely turns out that nothing even slightly bad happened, it's quite damaging the amount of scrutiny Nvidia is going to be under for the foreseeable future.

It’s not the infidelity part, it’s the undisclosed relationship with a subordinate part. That’s covered in HR training and is a fireable offense in every company I’ve been part of.

Was he the only one who knew?

This.

Everyone on that board will have had knowledge of GPUs going to China. Everyone on on THIS board has knowledge about GPUs going to China. Jeez.

It'd be so funny if he started actually sharing knowledge to China out of spite after all these. I know he is way too rich to do that, but one can dream.

sounds like the administration knew it too.

Isn't Google also doing the same? Are DCs in space a point of argument any more?

it feels like data centers in space only make sense if you're trying to protected them from the general population (mobs with pitchforks when we all lose our jobs)

I'd never bet against Musk. Microsoft can't make data centers in space viable in the same way ULA cannot make reusable rockets economical.

He's the chief architect of this. I hope the ones he's hurt along the way have support.

To call it a hit job is absurd. He is smart enough to know his actions could have severe consequences. He took a massive risk on behalf of millions for his own momentary pleasure.

Not a single inch of empathy for his wife and family, nor the misled investors and staff.

He cheated on his wife. More than once. Fuck him, let him be stressed.

Actions do have consequences and unlike his family, he made those decisions. They also are affect by them despite never having a choice.

I think finding humanity in our villains can help us gain perspective so I’d agree on your first point.

However let’s hold both thoughts at once, this was no hit job. Nvidia was forced to act quickly to mitigate business and legal risks. The eventual fallout they’ll face is still not fully known.

There is no support for people like him, CEOs of such big companies, or even any respectful CEO. People would only use him. That's human nature for you.

It's only the beginning of his problems. Congress hearings and an investor class action lawsuit are being prepared.

The public fall may seem quick but from my read of the timelines this has been ongoing for a lot longer.

The idea his fall is related to his affair also seems more like an attempt to minimise the fact that NVIDIA have been covertly selling to China when they were not supposed to.

Such a bizarre take to me. Yes, it's a quick fall.. but can you really trust him after he's been caught having an affair with a supposed Chinese spy, _and_ potentially another one with an employee? There is zero chance any normal business would keep a CEO after this...

I think the external event maybe moved quickly, but I read there was an internal event as well.

I’m sorry but this shows wildly inappropriate decision making. Say what you will about honeypots (I received specialized “warning” early in my career, but I recognize that is abnormal), but we all are forced through training every single year about how relationships at work, especially with imbalanced power dynamics, are inappropriate and should not take place.

I don’t care about the infidelity, but he represents the company at its pinnacle. He had to go.

I'm sorry, but a hit job he conducted on himself?

You can agree or disagree with his position on exporting to China being good/bad for nVidia or the US. But actively working closely with a company (Megaspeed) where, from a thousand miles away, it was clear that their primary goal was to get around and/or bend US export controls... that's a bad idea. Megaspeed was clearly working for the direct benefit of the Chinese government.

Add onto that having an extramarital affair with the representative of that company? Come on, it's extremely likely she's an agent of China, and if not it's a gigantic business risk.

Then, on top of that, you have to remember that he's married. A divorce results in half of his shares going to his wife, who would then have a grudge, probably not in the best interests of the comapny.

It is as much of a mistake to anthropomorphize billionaires as it is to anthropomorphize LLMs. People with resources greater than nations are .001% human and the rest is closer to a lovecraftian god. Consider that he can shatter markets or send massive trading companies under simply by having an affair. The empathy is misplaced.

You’re that sympathetic for a billionare having multiple affairs?

Are you serious?

> I have to imagine that Jensen is under an enormous amount of stress right now. I hope whatever he's going through he's got support.

Jensen, if you are reading this and need support you can try looking into BetterHelp. You can even get 20% off using certain partner links. No one should have to go through the stress of loosing their job from Chineese spies alone and with BetterHelp you're just one click away from your very own personal therapist.

Hopefully his wife has support. Jensen gets to reap what he sowed.

Sympathy for the guy having multiple affairs, including with a direct report, including with a spy and credible allegations of doing an end-run about valid export controls imposed by his country?

I have a lot more sympathy for the victims, not the arsonist!

I think with personal wealth in the billions he'll be just fine.

Just like Jensen built nvidia from scratch, he did build this situation from scratch too.

> I hope whatever he's going through he's got support.

He's worth like $140 billion. $70 billion if he gets divorced. He'll be fine.

He's spending some time in what he calls Jensen Jail.

maybe he shouldn't have been putting his dick in people other than where it was supposed to be?

I mean yes, he shouldn't be hounded, but if he'd kept it in his pants, he could have avoided all this nastiness.

> I hope whatever he's going through he's got support.

You don't get to cheat on your wife, company and country and get support lmao, what a strange things to say.

He put out the hit on himself when he stepped out.

If only there was something he could have done to not do it

Imagine not having a full picture and defending someone going around sanctions for profit. Wild stuff.

Won’t someone please think of the poor tech CEO

> This all seems to be happening way too quickly to be just.

Oh know, the consequences of my own actions have found me!

> But it feels like a hit job and something that was pushed through, rather than something that was properly considered as what is actually best for the company.

BUT THE COMPANY WON'T SOMEONE THINK ABOUT THE COMPANY

"I sure hope the billionaires are doing okay"

I doubt there is anyone close to his caliber that he can be replaced with. Engineers with strong leadership skills are hard to come by. Airhead CEO's with no clue when it comes to engineering are easy.

Case in point: The new interim Colette Kress is a finance MBA. China is laughing at us right now. Many engineers at Nvidia are looking at the exit.

He should be thankful he's not in prison. Even without the spy and affair scandals, his lobbying to sell chips to China is treasonous due to how geopolitically critical AI will soon become. (That alone is not criminally treasonous, but with the MSS influence operation, it might be.) He should've resigned days ago.

I'm no pro-US nationalist or anything, but I am very very much anti-CCP.

> He had a long-term mindset

Did he? A singular CEO with 40+ direct reports and no succession plan... that alone feels like a very short term mindset to me. He could have been hit by a car tomorrow, what's the contingency plan there? Not to mention the whole 'violating export restrictions' thing, that's typically not great for the long term viability of a company either.

> He had a long-term mindset, investing heavily in Tegra and CUDA in 2009-2010, even as he was plagued by write-offs from faulty chips.

He didn't seem to have a long-term mindset when he knowingly violated export control laws (the feds are, in general, super serious about export controls) and securities laws (the feds are also, in general, super serious about whatever they consider securities fraud) over the course of at least the last six months.

It's frustrating because it was so easily avoidable. Just don't do crimes with nation-states.

Thousands and thousands of employees played a more direct role. And in fact, many would've done things different, like not violating export controls and having affairs with reports. Don't simp for a CEO, you're weird

There might have been no such intervention. Put yourself in Huang's shoes for a minute, or a board member if you prefer, lick your finger, put it up to see how the winds are blowing and think of what you'd find. No need for pressure, just glance at the news and realize that the pressure will be forthcoming, and it won't/wouldn't just be "the China hawk fraction" (sic) but widespread.

But the valid decision is voted by board of directors, 10 individuals in total. To intervene, the gov practically needs to persuade some of them to change their vote.

I don't think the hawk fraction holds actual leverage on any of them to intervene.

I think the situation is just the board gets overwhelmed by journos, panicked, rushed to a decision, and Jensen resigned knowing he has to leave.

It is also tanking the Nvidia stock price causing many to sell, freeing up a lot of capital ... just before the Anthropic IPO...

Surely an AI market falling from this is not a good environment for Anthropic's IPO?

A lot of people here hold NVDA shares, so there is a lot of conflict of interest in the comments.

People have a lot of net worth tied into the economy. Nvidia is a lynchpin in the economy. People are biased towards keeping their net worth up. It’s not that deep, people want the tendies to continue printing.

I find it interesting to see so much blame being directed at the act of removing one person who may have been holding up trillions of value in the stock market, rather than at the market and industry conditions that led to so much value being supported by one person in the first place.

> baffling to read comments that this is excusable or he should be retained 'in interest of the shareholders'

If you want Exhibit A for the moral corruption of Silicon Valley’s culture, this is it. And it’s not tied to shareholdings. It’s the quasi-monarchic strain of worship that has been poisoning Valley culture for at least a decade now.

One of the greatest fallacies of modern times is that people are not human. There is this expectation that people will be perfect and flawless and make zero mistakes. That is incongruent with human nature. The dude had two consensual relationships outside his marriage. To err is human... this is all so overblown.

Meanwhile we have a felon in the white house (sexual assault) among an immeasurable number of other supposed crimes

This guy had a cult of personality I did not know about until this comment thread.

"He created so much shareholder value."

"Unlike Elon he shared the wealth with the company."

"The US is worse off without him."

I'm sorry but a patsy who is this gullible, or a CCP-friendly traitor that is this slimy (the jury is still out), should not be in this position of power.

Cool for all he accomplished so far. This isn't a situation that deserves a second chance.

I do believe a lot of people in here will be selected to be the kind who sees themselves as the next billionaire ceo (some might even be) and want it to be ok to have affairs with anyone they want. Want the CEO to be infallible and super special as this would apply to them too.

What's really inexcusable about it? It might be part of the standard US corporate culture, but still idiotic.

"Appearance of impropriety". Fuck all you puritans.

Ah yes. Being gay disqualified you from security clearance. Why? Because if you are gay, then you can be blackmailed. Why? Because you might lose your security clearance.

A company is not required to maintain a look of propriety. A company is not required to not look fishy. A company is not required to care how it is observed by the public at large. It is required only to maximize shareholder value.

There is no doubt that his sexscapades were stupid, but at the same time there is only one question that should matter for the board. Will the shareholders make more money with him or without?

Only because it benefits NVIDIA to have more potential customers in the shovel market to mine gold individually versus consolidating within a few providers (where the backend tooling becomes irrelevant to the consumers, and OpenAI & Co could freely change GPU manufacturers on a whim or move things in-house).

They should be taken down next.

Open weights might simply be what benefits Nvidia the most. Guess we'll see what his replacement says.

  pushing for open weights and keeping the Anthropic / OpenAI doom narrative from getting out of control.

Because the only thing standing in the way of Anthropic and OpenAI is open weight models, which Jensen advocates for.

Perspective is a hell of a thing.

I've consistently seen Jensen as a transparently self-interested shovel salesman while we dig our own mass grave.

For a person in his position, he has been exceedingly slow to wake up to the prospect of AGI - he seemed genuinely surprised by arguments from informed layperson Ezra Klein, for example, like he'd never even heard of it before.

Don’t worry. They are next.

This is exactly why he was taken out. They waited until after the midterms and then dropped the news

Which is why he got railroaded.

Affairs are commonplace. Most likely the internal findings from the investigation point to something more troubling/illegal

This is what I keep coming back to. The board is not some random board. They know Jensen is their golden goose, there is no NVIDIA without Jensen. What they saw must have been company-existentially-illegal for them to throw their golden goose under the bus as a survival tactic.

edit: btw the board has a director that’s ex-Cooley, no greenhorn I imagine to congressional investigational scrutiny. It had to be something that made them realize cutting ties with Jensen immediately was the only way to survive.

The board probably determined it would impact the stock too negatively to keep him on.

I think they go spooked because he's been a proponent of relaxing export controls to China and it turns out it's because his mistress/gf is a chinese spy who is influencing him. And NVIDIA is making what currently is probably a product of national security importance.

If I was them, I'd be worried that the government invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) or impose National Security Agreements and Clearances which would require NVIDIA to isolate sensitive R/D, restrict foreign nationals from accessing specific chip designs, and place government-vetted compliance monitors on its board or security teams. ALSO there definately will be subpeonos and probes and those are never fun.

Easier to say we cut out the guy responsible and hopefully that lessons the troubles

I think internally they know that the violation of export controls is gonna be sticky and it’s almost zero percent about an affair

After the news about a potential foreign compromise, disclosure of an affair with a subordinate is pretty damning. One can be discounted as poor judgement. Two is a pattern that's hard to dismiss. I wonder if we'll learn of other shenanigans or whether kicking him out stops future (possible) disclosures.

I mean, cheating is not nice and not morally great, but who cares for a CEO. He isn't hired for being a good husband.

The spy thing is juicy, maybe it's surface level, maybe it's deeper.

the second one being with an employee, and a direct subordinate at that, is inexcusable to the board

>> he made Nvidia (and investors) so much money.

Right now, he made them lose 700 Billion dollars. So the investors lawsuit also will be the biggest in history.

Can't speak for everyone else but for me it's because:

1. The whole spy / compromising national security thing are as far as I know unproven.

2. Affairs by themselves, while not ethical, are fairly tame compare to other prominent tech figures like Musk.

If it comes out that he did indeed compromise national security knowingly, then that's a different matter of course.

He sucks but even if I take the worst interpretation of what it looks like this guy did and assume there's a bunch of other affairs I just don't have enough energy to get worked up about something so comparatively small potatoes. I don't idolize or feel sorry for him, but he was a competent leader of his company. Nvidia will be a weaker company without him and I think the fears of an inference lock on GPUs to prop up slime ball American AI companies is more likely to come true with him gone. The next CEO is more likely to accept a bride to make it happen.

To quote a fictional president: "That's the problem with the american dream, it makes everyone concerned for the day they're going to be rich..."

The apologists probably hold NVDA stock. Same thing happens with other popular companies and their voices are very loud online.

They likely have made similar transgressions.

To which kind of morality are you referring to? The extramarital affair, the puritan angle, or something else?

In other contexts we expect some transparency if you have a stake in what is happening. This thread is full of tech workers, and would look very different if each comment was prefaced with some sort of 'Hello, I am John Doe. Nvidia represents 35% of my retirement portfolio, and the semiconductor industry overall represents over 70%. This is why I do not care to rock the boat, and think he did nothing wrong...'

> ruthless

Really now. Let's get some examples of his being ruthless.

It's insane. I bet none of the commenters here would spare a thought for a manager at a 7-11 who got fired for having sex with one of his subordinates and ended up on the streets because he couldn't pay his rent.

But one of the wealthiest people on the planet gets fired, suffering zero personal hardship as a result, and everybody's up in arms. How could you do this! They all do this, how dare you single him out!

I think that there's a pervasive idea, especially in the tech/startup space, that making money is a moral good. Not merely that making money is compatible with being a good person, but that it makes you a good person, and the more you make the more good you are. Firing an ultra-rich person is therefore basically an affront to a saint. Never mind that it doesn't put them under any hardship, that they and their heirs will still be wealthier than any of us can even conceive of. It's morally wrong to do anything bad to such a good person.

You're asking why posters in a VC forum, in an industry that is despised by the public for its wanton greed, societal destruction, and complete disdain towards humanity would want to protect one of their own?

Bro, this is what the tech industry is all about: fucking over society to make a dollar.

I wonder if people haven't seen his interviews or public appearances in the past 1-2 years, especially when anything to do with Trump came up. I don't find CEO interviews particularly interesting to begin with, because they're performing a role and can't give honest answers. Jensen took that dishonesty to a pretty high level.

Ezra Klein interviewed Jensen about 1.5 months ago and I had an off-putting feeling from it, and thought a lot of his answers were laughable. He sounded like he was obviously lying. A few days later, Klein interviewed Bill Gates and sort of anonymously brought up the arguments that Jensen made. You could see a visible disbelief of the arguments in Gates' face and posture, even saying "I almost can't believe you're asking that". (Not that Bill Gates is some paragon, but it wasn't close to a respectful disagreement.)

I don't think there is a more hallmark visionary CEO than Jobs, and Apple isn't exactly doing poorly today.

Maybe the veneer isn't there, but it's very hard to make the case that Apple has in any way failed following the loss of him. Cook was pretty mediocre, and it shows that when you have a strong ship sailing, you just need a "not total idiot" to keep it going.

NVIDIA would be without Jensen some day anyway, and he still owns a lot of stock.

Yeah there is probably more to the story. Like evidence he actually did something very damaging to NVIDIA/National security. Knowingly helped smuggled chips, divulged trade secrets, etc. An affair and unknowingly selling chips to a company smuggling into China would not be worth the risk of getting rid of him. He must have already caused pretty large damage that is has yet to metastasize.

Temporary setback maybe, but I guess I don't see how an organization this large can depend so much on 1 person

That's not a useful defense. I think everyone here knows that Tesla and SpaceX without Elon would trade at a third or a fourth their current valuations. People are invested in breathing Elon's gas. But if it's bullshit, like selling chips to a cut out, and making that cut out a priority customer, that undermine's confidence in all the reported financials having to do with AI.

Obviously, only him could have great visions about NVIDIA. I am expecting a 'we are going to stagnate, at best, without Jensen' worded admittance now from those poor folks remained in the organisation, with all those visionary thoughts taken away from them so abruptly. CEOs are the one taking the companies forward!

> zero public evidence of this

is a bit of a stretch, given the reporting, intel briefings, comments from members of congress after the briefings, etc...

People who have worked in the national security sector in the US know how China operates. Any Chinese tech personage who is not a CCP spy but who somehow rises to a position of international influence will be recruited to work for the CCP by being made an offer they cannot refuse. In a typical case, there is plenty of evidence but most of it will never be made public for security reasons.

Of course China always denies this, but the evidence for this behavior over thousands of cases is such that the burden of proof is on those who claim such a person was not a spy.

This does not imply that the Chinese people or even its government are "evil" or that we shouldn't do business with them. It's just something that everybody who deals with China needs to be aware of.

> zero public evidence of this

yet it was an open secret among those in the know, both the affairs and the export violations

I'm going to guess the 2nd affair with a direct report who rose quickly through the ranks is from the board's perspective the more egregious of the two failings.

And: the public only knows what's made it out. Who knows what else has come out in private.

But the original news was not what sealed the deal, it was the follow up.

Nvidia will be just fine

I feel like "not having a succession plan" should be a fireable offence on its own.

Otherwise you end up thinking "should I start an affair with this Chinese spy I've been breaking US laws with? What are they going to do, fire me? They can't, I've got them trapped so I'm untouchable, I can do whatever I want. And if I'm in a helicopter crash then it sucks to be them, I'll not care when I'm dead".

Imagine having to explain that line of reasoning to Congress in four months. "Yes, Senator, we know our CEO was facilitating chip smuggling to China while in a relationship with a Chinese spy, but we figured that it would just be too risky to replace him at this time."

> Huang has his fingers in every pie; he's not the hands off type

well, yeah.

"an affair with a spy is not great" rather undersells the situation - there could be criminal liability.

> "And who can forget his spat with Jobs all those years ago."

Apparently I am able to, what was that?

Nvidia eventually had a spat with just about any corporation it has ever worked with. Their only partnership that stood the test of time is probably Nintendo.

He worked at Dennys in Portland for a while, so... He can always lean on that experience if needed.

This is undoubtedly the most painful professional moment in his career which has been almost entirely Nvidia.

> I do feel for Jensen

Why? He caused this. He chose to have affairs with a spy and a subordinate. Now he has to deal with the consequences.

> For all his faults, I do feel for Jensen.

Me too. If he needs somebody to take his place he can reach me at my HN profile page. I'll take the bullet and try to struggle through with just billions of dollars.

I feel for his wife, personally

Wonder if he'll enjoy his retirement or end up like Marlo Stanfield at the end of The Wire.

Not to hate but he didn't build any GPU tech really.. He just came up with the name "GPU" (like CPU but with a G").

> He built this thing from an absolute scratch.

Pretty sure all those nVidia employees over the years had a bigger hand in building it.

I, too, feel for the billionaire adulterer.

[flagged]

China hawks in the admin. Trump was on board with loosening the export controls so that Nvidia could stay in the game, which ironically would've prevented China's domestic chips getting off the ground. The Stephen Miller types (and whoever connected to ant/openai) didn't want to concede anything. This is beyond personal vendetta stuff.

More likely the hardliners/security establishment. Rubio reportedly let Trump know of the affair/spy suspicion earlier this year (April? I don't recall), and he clearly ignored it because he likes Jensen and/or he wanted to get in on the action as Nvidia was making bank selling GPUs to China.

This breaking just before a meeting with Trump/Xi and just after the midterms show a changing wind in Washington is a hell of a coincidence—or not.

Up to 20 years in prison if you knew about it.

More likely would be large fines and possibly restrictions and audits of all future exports.

Considering the Trump admin flipflopped between

- we can't allow China access to buy or lease any GPUs

and

- turns out China is half the customer base, so cutting them off will crash the market, and the Chinese will just build their own anyways

Considering Trump & Jensen traveled to China just to sell more GPUs and despite that the CCP banned Chinese companies from importing Western Hardware in favor of domestic alternatives, I have my doubts this story makes sense

Very? Unless you're doing it as part of some CIA operation and even then you better hope you can prove it.

Depends on the size of the bribe to your government

Eh, I think they wouldn't care except that both affairs are potential conflict of interest issues. If it were like a random person with no connection to the business that he had an affair with it'd be treated as less of an issue I think.

..and because American culture is really prudish about that.

The French and Italians wouldn't blink an eye. Us Brits, we'd talk about it, he's get a slap on the wrist but wouldn't be sacked.

It seems to be a uniquely American thing that the CEO can basically do anything (lie, cheat, fraud etc) just as long as he doesn't get caught with his pants down.

The second one was a direct report to him, and I wouldnt be surprised if he granted her favors in exchange for the sex (whether it was "promised" or not) typically no executive 'survives' having an affair with a direct report and stays in the company.

Who you have an affair with matters more, in this case a Chinese spy wasn't enough, which almost makes you think, he was not the only one at Nvidia who knew.

Yeah, it's the treason-y bit that the affairs revealed.

It’s only embarrassing because of the GPUs that ended up in China.

Information wants to be free. I don't see how anyone could lock down a file of weights.

This is a weird take. If any company in AI is a monopoly it’s Nvidia.

Right. It wasn’t that Jensen had an affair with a foreign spy and that the Nvidia board found damning evidence despite them being very incentivized not to. This is actually the doing of the secret cabal of AI monopolists (all three?). And now because we didn’t look the other way while a CEO was double-timing (talking of course about selling to China while saying he was being faithful to the US) we’re turning the car around and there will be no more open weights for anyone.

> AI monopolists had him removed.

PETA had him removed for his love of leather jackets...

We're playing the "Jensen did nothing wrong" game, right?

Don't go public if you don't want to answer to the public.

He didn't build it from scratch un-nurtured. He built it with help from people smarter than him, and with external capital that has severely diluted his stake in the org.

He's a <3.5% shareholder.

He then carried out actions which put the jobs of people smarter than him at risk, and also put the capital that gave him a platform at risk.

He got what he deserved imo.

I know "resigned" in headlines means he was forced to. But, why didn't he publicly fight it?

So the board of directors is a bunch of randos now?

That would be so awesome.

Sure, that Steve Jobs, the guy who had an affair with a Chinese spy and slept with an employee. What an egregious comparison.

He's going to have a 6 year vacation. putting my bet here on the internet history books.

I wish there was more commentary on your point of view. HN has really disappointed me today. I come here for the deeper insight and instead I got Reddit lite. I read the NVIDIA way when it came out and was gobsmacked that all these years the company was operating the way that it did. It really made me admire the perseverance the employees went through and made me realize Jensen was a hidden gem. Seeing China announce their own GPUs made me think NVIDIA was in for some sweat but now? Its as if they are torpedoing NVIDIA for a short term gain only to not realize they have just tossed the long term win to China. The conspiracy theorist in me think they are hoping to pin the blame on the left or they think they can remain in the shadows and break companies that dont play ball no matter how important they are and walk away unscathed. This is a serious fundamental problem in modern American governance that might scare talented people away from the country.

Megaspeed is one customer. Plenty of other SE Asia customers willing to move the chips, or host them on behalf of China.

> The truth will come out one day

Not if people with agendas keep squashing it. They don't even have to be sophisticated agendas - just look at the comments in this thread.

and of those married to people of Chinese descent..

I've already seen racist memes about Zuckerberg and others.

> Tin foil hat take: I think Jensen's been sniped.

I think this statement has a real risk of turning into a motte and bailey argument.

If you are only alleging that people are gunning for him, that’s true for every CEO and powerful person on the planet. People have things to gain from exploiting their positions.

> We've had very clear evidence of Microsoft's leadership being caught in honey-traps by foreign governments.

Huh, hadn’t heard of any actually, examples?

>Tin foil hat take: I think Jensen's been sniped.

By whom?

Jensen AND Elon AND Sam should all go. They have all proven to do enormous damage to the US and its allies

Jensen is being outed by his board.

The others do not have a board capable of outing them. It has, in fact, been tried and discussed at length.

It's not a conspiracy, this is what happens when you don't give one person total control through manipulating the board and stock. You fuck up and get the axe.

> Musk has done, and continues to do, the most horrific stuff, including things far more questionable from a US security perspective.

Like what

The difference between Musk and Huang is that Musk has engineered such control of his companies through dual class listings that there really is no one who can fire him. Having said that, people are very openly talking about the fact that Musk is going to spend the next couple of years spending quality time with the US congress explaining in minute detail why he's not a traitor.

Tin foil? It's shiny paper.

This is too co-ordinated, too quick, these have been sitting in someone's inbox for a while until it was useful.

It's not interesting that Nvidia's CEO wanted to be allowed to sell GPUs in more markets. Would be surprised if his replacement changes the stance.

> Jensen's the most pro-open weight guy and calmest on China public figure at that level.

Yeah, I can't think of any activities he's been up to recently that would result in him being calm and pro-China.

My tin foil hat says it was a state dept leak to NYT timed with trades in the market. Follow the money.

You don't think maybe he was calm on China because he was knowingly working with a Chinese spy?

He didn't. He was fired by the board. This is how that typically goes. That's why the CFO is acting as interim CEO.

Who cares now? It is entertaining, but caring about something and being entertained by something are not equivalent.

On Nov 8th, the board stated that "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised".

OK, looks like this spy story was not power enough (as we do not have evidence), let's use another one: an internal affair. Maybe two lies will do the job.

Copied from WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/a-mystery-businessman-introduced...):

U.S. officials believe that China’s intelligence services recruited Alice Huang as an asset because of her access to the chip-designer chief

-----

Read between the lines: "believe", we do not have any real evidences, but we believe.

Alice might have to interact with someone from Chinese government ---> that's evidence of being recruited as spy.

Let's forget about the fact that anyone who do business in China (or any country) needs to interact with government employees at some time point.

Wdym “who cares about the truth” when you are speculating without any source? Is that not ironic?

Who needs evidence when we have wild baseless speculation from HN commenters?

I think it will come to light the board was aware well before it became public. There are likely more damning details that are yet to be public.

You're getting mixed signals because it's both a yes and a no. Very likely not a "spy" per se - she's a proper business woman with a long career. Very likely in touch with China's information services - because she's a business woman with a long career.

But yeah, the "model" memes are completely offtopic. She's nearly 50.

'Singaporean' company whose former managing director (Chinese national Alice Huang / Huang Le) and owner (through a self-titled company) is the same person he's had an extramarital affair with.

The same company they've audited the datacentres of, and saw dummy non-running servers within which had been stripped of their GPUs, and were 'fooled' that they were simply yet to be commissioned.

He will never do this. His family is so embedded in Nvidia that he may as well be handing over a kingdom at this point. He might go on to do other kinds of related things, or maybe he will buy an island and vanish, who knows. But, he will never compete with Nvidia.

> Felt like he knew what he was talking about

I lost faith when he was on Ezra Klein's show and said he doesn't think kids should learn math any more.

Hard disagree. Public knowledge of an affair with an employee is a surefire way for the board to fire you.

Not everyone is controlling of their partners sex life.

eh, there is a rumour that it was one of those 'open' marriages, given that his daughter was seen with him and Alice Huang in a video, implying they were ok with it. (dunno about the second one though, but given the first, the second seems excused as well)

Nah, this is about the indirect Chinese access to chips, and this whole cheating thing is a cover. He's confessing to a 'lesser' crime to save himself for the real threat of jail.

It's hard for me to imagine Cook taking over Nvidia unless it was strictly temporary. I get the impression Cook retired because he wanted to relax and enjoy his golden years. But I agree he'd be a good choice to manage the chaos at Nvidia.

Trump agrees with you

Jensen Huang was against regulation of open models because he was *for* selling GPUs. He was so for it, he might have helped an Alibaba corporate cutout launder a bunch of them against US trade regulations.

You may think that's a ridiculous bigger picture, but that's the bigger picture I'm looking at. I think your bigger picture of, "this is an inside-the-industry coup to remove the one champion of open weights models," is even more ridiculous.

Both of these notwithstanding, what makes you believe nvidia's new permanent CEO won't also be a champion for open weights? An open weights ecosystem is better for their business long term.

For what its worth, Hugging Face is still going to push hard on our mission of open, local models

Agreed. People are too eager to signal moral outrage to actually see the bigger picture.

Or we just don't buy your conspiracy theories without evidence?

Funny how that perspective completely changed because CUDA ended up being a better idea than initially anticipated, while the need for well-designed and -maintained linux graphics drivers.. somehow subsided? (my nvidia drivers still deadlock way too often)

Stories drop from the front page (ie. penalized) if they attract a high comment to upvote ratio, indicating an overheated comment thread.

the front page is heavily censored, best to use /active or hckrnws

There were two on Wednesday, from WSJ and NYT. You probably just missed them.

She'd be an absolutely terrible successor. If she'd make a good successor then AMD would already be competitive with Nvidia for GPUs.

“Hey Lisa! How’s it going? So ya we just fired your cousin who created our company. We were wondering if we could get on a call with you about replacing him and leaving your rival company? If you could call us back on 1-800-NVDA that would be great.”

i mean if she puts on a leather jacket she looks just like him lol. evidently they are actually related

https://jobs.nvidia.com/careers

Illuminating, truly.

Or better yet, train an LLM around Steve Jobs quotes and make it the CEO.

I don’t get why no one seems to talk about the first point

All the china stuff aside you cannot have a relationship with someone you made a business deal with

That’s like conflict of interest 101

Which of the following views do you find problematic, inexplicable, or unjustifiable

- Conflicts of interest compromise trust and judgement

- Relationships with direct reports create a conflict of interest

- Relationships with direct customers create a conflict of interest

- Policies should be set such relationships are either disallowed or require strict oversight / disclosure

- Companies should enforce their stated policies equally as required by employment law

- Affairs demonstrate a lack of judgement, a lack of candor, and are problematic for positions of trust

- An executive that lies about an affair creates a risk of blackmail and a liability for the company

I would agree for a "regular" employee - as the CEO you are literally the face of the company, so you are held to a higher standard. When you look bad publicly, the company looks bad - that's the job you agree to when you become CEO.

You don’t see an issue sleeping with the CEO of a company you made a business deal with?

Are you serious?

It's not a personal romantic relationship if the other side is either a direct subordinate or the head of a chip smuggling operation in violation of federal export control laws

People get fired all the time for things that they do in their personal life now all of a sudden we care?

Supposedly he started working with a crisis communications firm over a year ago. Where there is smoke there is fire.

He resigns so he would forfeit much of contractual severance in most cases. A negotiated settlement is likely as part of the resignation and if he’s rehired elsewhere (eg at terafab or tsmc) it will generally terminate ongoing payments, healthcare, access to private aircraft and security.

3 leather jackets

100% There is a larger play here. A lot of folks are commenting about power dynamics of sleeping with a subordinate as the reason, but that's not it.

Extremely well.

His family works at the company.

The board of Nvidia is elected by the shareholders.

Shareholders voted on them in June:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581026...

If the board cannot fire the CEO they are not really a board

I can think of one company that rose from $347 billion to $4.6 trillion market cap after their finance person successfully filled the shoes of an innovator

Move on... Like regular people?

Create a charity, move to a rural town and become a farmer?

Elon and Zuck set themselves in a position where they are 51% and cannot be ousted by the board by construction.

Jensen messed up by splitting the power between all board members equally, and not getting a bunch of his family on a board.

The lesson is that if you do the right, non-authoritarian thing, you get punished