Inside Jensen Huang's fall: a spy scandal and a 'feudal' Nvidia (opens the source in a new tab)
- Nvidia's board met late into the night before Huang quit, ending 33 years at the company he co-founded, the FT reports. US agencies suspected a woman he admitted an affair with, an executive at Singapore client MegaSpeed, of spying for China; reports of an alleged affair with a subordinate followed.
- Insiders describe a 'feudal' Nvidia: 60 direct reports to Huang, family members in senior roles, no formal succession plan and no officially named compliance chief.
- In a New York Times guest essay, biographer Stephen Witt argues hubris undid Huang, and that pushing to lift chip export curbs on China set Washington hawks against him.
Why it matters This is a governance story as much as a markets one: one man held Nvidia's deals, its Washington ties and its culture. Every board of a founder-led giant will now be asked what checks it really has.
Other side Backers such as Elon Musk defended Huang, and the board and FBI inquiries have not yet reported. Is a private failing being blurred with corporate wrongdoing, and would a more cautious leader have built Nvidia at all?