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Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO and board announces his departure. Extramarital affair with Chinese businesswoman linked to Beijing’s intelligence services.
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Huang resigns immediately
Jensen Huang resigned as CEO of Nvidia after the company’s board of directors learned of his relationship with a supposed Chinese spy, and Nvidia named Colette Kress as interim chief executive officer while it searched for a permanent successor. Nvidia’s statement said, “The Board of Directors announced today that Jensen Huang has resigned from his positions as chairman, chief executive officer, and board member, effective immediately,” and it added that Kress would serve as interim CEO while continuing as chief financial officer.
Huang came under fire after he was accused of having a romantic relationship with Alice Huang, the former CEO of a data center company based in Singapore, who was named as a supposed Chinese spy. Huang admitted last Sunday to having been “unfaithful” to his wife and apologized for hurting her and their children, and the company said it was already investigating the relationship Huang acknowledged.
Reporting for this sectionCadena SERBBC
Spy claims disputed
The US intelligence community was still working to understand the relationship between Alice Huang and Jensen Huang, and multiple sources told CNN that the intelligence collected to date does not prove she was acting as a spy for Beijing. Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN that there were still “no conclusions reached by the Department of Justice, or by me, or by [FBI] Director Patel around who she is or is not,” while other officials framed the characterization of Alice Huang as a Chinese spy as “not entirely accurate and over-torqued,” according to CNN sources.
Beijing warned the United States not to use espionage accusations as a pretext to restrict the sale of technology to China, and the government of the Asian country denies the allegations. The FBI was conducting its own inquiries into the relationship Huang acknowledged, and Nvidia was already investigating the relationship Huang has acknowledged.
Reporting for this sectionCNNBBC
White House and markets
The scandal over Huang’s resignation and the alleged espionage risk put the Trump administration in a bind, and BBC reporting said the consequences could reach the Oval Office and the highest levels of U.S. political power.
The FBI has been investigating Huang’s affair for at least a year, and Democratic Rep. Jim Himes told POLITICO that he left a classified briefing unsure of “the nature of Huang’s relationship with the Chinese government.”
Nvidia’s leadership change also hit markets, with Cadena SER reporting that Nvidia had squandered about $430 billion in market value in the two days following Huang’s confession and that its shares fell 7.45% in early trading on Wall Street.
Cadena SER added that the stock drop came just a few days before Nvidia releases its quarterly results, scheduled for November 17, and it said the board launched an external independent investigation on Sunday in light of The New York Times reporting.
Reporting for this sectionBBCCadena SER
