The investigation of Jensen Huang by Nvidia’s board threatens the future of one of Silicon Valley’s longest-serving executives and a key enabler of the AI boom, who has no obvious successor as leader of the world’s second-most-valuable company.
Huang is fighting for survival after admitting to an extramarital affair, believed to be with an executive at a large Nvidia customer whom US officials also allege was working as a Chinese spy.
The prospect that Huang could be forced out as chief executive of the US chipmaker he co-founded more than 30 years ago has alarmed investors and allies in the tech industry. Shares in Nvidia, which late last month ceded its position as the world’s most valuable to Apple amid a broader sell-off in AI stocks, had fallen more than 5 percent by midday trading on Monday.
“Jensen is irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership,” said Shaun Maguire, partner at early Nvidia investor Sequoia Capital, in a social media post.
Nvidia’s chips were instrumental in the creation of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and now sit at the centre of Big Tech’s $1 trillion AI infrastructure frenzy. Huang has personally stood behind investments and guarantees running into hundreds of billions of dollars for dozens of AI start-ups and data centre providers, as well as lobbying US President Donald Trump for looser AI regulation.
“Nvidia is not an ordinary company and Jensen is not an ordinary CEO; he IS Nvidia,” analysts at Bernstein said in a note to clients.
With policymakers in Washington pressuring Huang to appear before congressional committees to explain himself, the spotlight is on Nvidia’s board, which said on Sunday it would conduct its own “independent” investigation into the scandal that exploded over the weekend.
