Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is facing the most serious challenge to his leadership in the company’s history. This follows a report alleging a second extramarital relationship, this time with a senior executive who reports directly to him. Traders moved quickly. On Polymarket, the odds of Huang leaving his post briefly touched 88%.
The Second Allegation
The New York Times reported that Huang had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, 48, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare. Powell reports to Huang directly. The company’s code of conduct asks employees to avoid personal relationships that could create conflicts of interest, and that appears to be the core of the board’s concern.
It is not the first allegation. Huang was already under scrutiny over a reported relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed whom U.S. intelligence has identified as a suspected Chinese spy. Both matters are allegations at this stage, not proven findings.
Shares fell more than 10% within hours of the news. NVDA was trading around $173.70.
Board Meeting and Investigation
On November 11, the board reportedly held a closed-door emergency meeting on whether Huang stays. Nvidia has 11 board members, 10 of them independent. Under company rules, a simple majority of independent directors can remove the CEO with or without cause, and Huang holds no special voting rights that would let him block such a move.
The board brought in Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz on November 10 to investigate both matters, according to reports.
Who Might Replace Him
No successor has been named. CFO Colette Kress is seen as the leading internal candidate for an interim role. Ian Buck, a senior AI executive tied to CUDA, is mentioned as a longer-term option.
Other internal names circulating include Andrew Bell, Jeff Fisher, Bryan Catanzaro, co-founder Chris Malachowsky, plus Spencer Huang, Madison Huang and Nico Caprez.
Outside candidates include Rene Haas of Arm, AMD’s Lisa Su, Google Cloud’s Thomas Kurian, AWS’s Matt Garman, Apple’s Tim Cook and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Most of these are speculative, perhaps wishful thinking on the part of traders.
Timing
Whatever the board decides will land just days before Nvidia’s November 17 third-quarter earnings report. Kalshi traders put the odds of Huang leaving by December 1 at 80%. That is a market signal, not a verdict.
