Fall of a titan: A timeline of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s steady rise and dizzying fall

For 33 years, Jensen Huang’s name was synonymous with Nvidia. He cofounded it with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem at a Denny’s restaurant in 1993.

Huang became the most prominent founding member of Nvidia, serving as CEO from the outset. He steered it through near-bankruptcy and turned the graphics-chip maker into arguably the biggest beneficiary of the AI boom.

Then news broke in late October that Huang had close ties with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. Later, two other affairs were revealed, which ultimately led to his resignation.


The chipmaker was valued at nearly $6 trillion at its peak on October 6. Then, over the last five days, things began to unravel.

Here’s a brief timeline of the events:

1963: Huang is born in Taipei. He later moves to the US to study electrical engineering at Oregon State and Stanford.

1983-1993: Works at AMD and LSI Logic.

1993: Cofounds Nvidia with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem at a Denny’s in San Jose, and becomes CEO.

1995-97: The first chip, the NV1, flops, and the company comes close to shutting down. Nvidia pivots to Microsoft’s Direct3D and the 1997 RIVA 128.

1999: Nvidia goes public and launches the GeForce 256, marketed as the first GPU.

2016: Huang hand-delivers the first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to OpenAI.

November 2022: OpenAI launches ChatGPT and demand for Nvidia’s chips explodes.

2023-24: The company's market value jumps from $1 trillion to $3 trillion.

October 2025: Nvidia books over $500 billion in orders through 2026 and becomes the first $5 trillion company.

September 2026: Market value hits $5.4 trillion, ahead of Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft.

October 2026: Shares hit a record high, the company nears a $6 trillion valuation, and Huang’s net worth passes $200 billion.

November 8-10: Huang admits to having an affair in a November 8 statement to Nvidia employees following reports of his relationship with Alice Huang, without referring to her by name. She is suspected of being a Chinese spy by US intelligence.

November 11: The New York Times reports that Huang had a second relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of health care.

November 12: Reuters reports that Huang had another intimate relationship with a second employee at the chipmaker, taking the number of reported extramarital affairs to three.

Nvidia subsequently announces Huang’s resignation and names Harvey Jones as its first-ever chairman. CFO Colette Kress is appointed interim CEO.

Also read | Jensen Huang's two alleged affairs trigger memes and speculation as he resigns as Nvidia CEO

Nvidia shares fell 5.5% in active trading on Thursday. The stock has lost more than 30% of its value since hitting an early October peak.

November 17: Nvidia is scheduled to report its third-quarter results, the first earnings report in 33 years without Huang as CEO.