After weeks of leaks and rumors, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has finally admitted to having had an affair. It is widely thought to be with Alice Huang, who is believed by the government to be a Chinese spy.
In a statement yesterday, Nvidia’s board said that it will investigate the affair, noting that it “has confidence in Jensen” and “has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised.”
An investigation is necessary to see just how bad the incident was. But its findings are not needed to decide what to do with Jensen, who in recent weeks appears to have misled his own employees, investors and the public.
The implications are clear: Jensen Huang should resign.
There are so many aspects to the affair that it is hard to know where to begin. Most attention, unsurprisingly, is focused on the national security implications of Huang being romantically involved with a suspected Chinese spy. But even if Alice Huang is an ordinary civilian, the affair and events surrounding it are unacceptable for a CEO of a major company.
Alice Huang was until recently a senior executive at Megaspeed, a large Nvidia customer which has bragged about its access to the company’s chips. (Megaspeed “has imported Nvidia hardware worth at least $4.6 billion,” Bloomberg reported last November.) Having an affair with a customer is, obviously, a conflict of interest. Nvidia’s own code of conduct says conflicts of interest, which can include personal relationships, should be avoided. When they arise, “we immediately remove ourselves from any decision-making role in the matter,” the code says. As of right now, we do not know if the affair was disclosed to Nvidia’s board or if Huang removed himself from decision-making involving Megaspeed; if not, that is a resigning offense in and of itself.
Worse, in recent weeks Nvidia and Huang have issued multiple statements we now know to be false. In a New York Times piece on October 29, Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo said “Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected,” a line repeated in a November 6 article. Jensen said the same thing himself, telling Bloomberg on October 29: “Our relationship, our interactions, have been related to Megaspeed, and it was all completely normal and not unusual.”
Unless Huang has been secretly sleeping with Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and all his other customers, those statements were clearly false — something Jensen, at least, knew at the time he made them. We do not know if Rizzo knew they were false too; if not, Huang appears to have misled his own executives as well.
It is hard to see how misleading the public and investors in this way is defensible. Given that revelations of Huang’s affair have hit Nvidia’s stock price, demonstrating a financial impact, those statements may prompt investigations under securities rules, and almost certainly lead to lawsuits from investors.
All this ought to be compelling grounds for a resignation. And yet there is still more. Nvidia has repeatedly opposed semiconductor export controls, a stance US officials suspect Alice Huang of pushing on China’s behalf. Megaspeed has been suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips into China. Nvidia’s general counsel, Tim Teter, reportedly contacted the Commerce Department about its investigation into Megaspeed, leading Commerce to transfer the case to the DOJ.
In the worst case, Nvidia may have fundamentally undermined American national security and AI leadership because Jensen Huang was being manipulated by a Chinese spy he was romantically involved with. But even in the best case, Huang looks to have misled the public and entangled himself in a relationship that creates clear conflicts.
In normal times, Huang’s position would be clearly untenable. In reality, Nvidia’s board may keep him around. He has no clear successor, and the financial incentives to keep him there are overwhelming. The moral case is clear: Jensen Huang must resign. Whether he actually will is a different matter.
How much were you paid to write this? Jensen was the most pro open model guy - suddenly every article talks about how he should resign today. Shakeel Hashim - say the truth:
"Having an affair with a customer is, obviously, a conflict of interest." I'm sorry, but this article is ridiculous.