Not even a board seat: Jensen Huang walks away from every formal role at the company he founded in a Denny's booth

Nvidia's Jensen Huang resigned from his positions as president, chief executive officer and board member of the company on Thursday. Nvidia's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Colette Kress, was appointed interim CEO. She has been tasked to lead the company until a permanent successor is named. This came after Jensen Huang had claimed that he was unfaithful to his wife, and reportedly had a close relationship with alleged Chinese spy Alice Huang. Alice had been under surveillance by US intelligence agencies. According to reports, US intelligence assessments stated that Alice had been recruited by China's Ministry of State Security (MSS). She was allegedly given the role of developing a close relationship with Jensen, and gathering information about Nvidia.

It was revealed that Jensen had two extramarital affairs. One with Alice Huang and another with a subordinate executive, according to The Wall Street Journal. This came after The New York Times reported that Huang had maintained an undisclosed relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of health care.

What did Nvidia officially say?

The company said that Jensen Huang had resigned from three positions. It included the President of Nvidia, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board. The board initiated a search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer and would consider internal and external candidates. The Board and the company thanked Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry.


ALSO READ: ‘Profound’ contributions, and not a word about why: What Nvidia’s resignation statement leaves out

The initial journey of the company

Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. They had met at a Denny's restaurant in San Jose, California. They wanted to design semiconductor chips that could create more realistic graphics for video games. But, they made a strategic blunder. Later, an eleventh-hour $5 million investment from Sega gave Nvidia a new lifeline. The next decade was spent by the company on gaming. Then, over the years, the company expanded into gaming graphics, data centres, and artificial intelligence.

Jensen Huang later went on to become one of the most influential names in the technology industry. Nvidia's chips became central to the development of generative AI.