According to a report by American media Semafor on the 12th, citing sources familiar with the matter, NVIDIA's board of directors is preparing to remove its founder and CEO Jensen Huang. Some directors favor having the chief financial officer Colette Kress serve as the interim CEO. At the same time, the company has entrusted an external headhunting firm to initiate a new CEO search process. Following the release of this news, NVIDIA's stock price fell more than 8% after the market closed, reaching a 52-week low.
According to Semafor, the NVIDIA board of directors has scheduled a meeting for this Wednesday evening, Eastern Time, to discuss the possibility of removing Jensen Huang as CEO as soon as possible on the same day. It is reported that the catalyst for this crisis was the media exposure of Jensen Huang's second extramarital affair. A senior U.S. government official revealed that the NVIDIA board of directors has informed the White House about the planned meeting.
The impact of this incident has spread to the political arena. Democratic senators Chris Coons and Elizabeth Warren jointly wrote a letter to members of Trump's cabinet on Wednesday, requesting that all parties retain documents related to the export of NVIDIA chips, and calling for an investigation into whether relevant government departments failed to take action despite being aware of the security vulnerabilities.
Transitional arrangements: The call for Kress is quite strong, and external searches are being carried out simultaneously.
According to people familiar with the matter, if Jensen Huang were to be removed from his position, some members of NVIDIA's board of directors tend to appoint the current CFO Colette Kress to serve as the transitional CEO, but the full board of directors has not yet made a final decision on this matter.
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, NVIDIA has hired an external headhunting firm to find the next candidate for CEO. Another source revealed that Apple's hardware director, Johny Srouji, is one of the candidates being considered, and he was previously on Intel's CEO candidate list in 2019.
NVIDIA spokesperson did not immediately respond to the aforementioned matters.
Root of the crisis: Allegations of extramarital affairs and security investigations
This removal from office is the latest development in a series of recent controversies at NVIDIA. Jensen Huang had previously admitted to having an extramarital affair, and the company, with a market value of $4 trillion, has since found itself under dual pressure from public opinion and regulatory authorities.
The board of directors, which has been in place for a long time at NVIDIA, has announced that it has entrusted the law firm Wachtell Lipton to lead the investigation. As a core provider of global artificial intelligence infrastructure, NVIDIA not only supplies the most advanced chips to major hyperscale cloud computing companies but has also signed financing agreements worth billions of dollars, deeply participating in the construction and layout of AI infrastructure, making the potential impact of this security concern even more complex and far-reaching.
This case has drawn the attention of Congress. Democratic senators Chris Coons and Elizabeth Warren have jointly written to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, requesting them to preserve all documents and records related to the export of NVIDIA chips as well as the communications between Jensen Huang and Trump.
