The unfolding Jensen Huang scandal: a timeline

Nvidia co-founder and nowformerCEO Jensen Huang has never been as prone to controversy as AI leaders like OpenAI’s Sam Altman or SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk. But the 63-year-old industry kingpin recently admitted that hecheated on his wifeof 40 years in affairs that could have ramifications beyond Huang’s personal life and U.S. national security. U.S. officials believe that one of Huang’s likely romantic interests, Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, isa Chinese spywho has been feeding information back to Beijing. (Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen, is of no relation to Jensen Huang.) Megaspeed is a Singapore-based AI infrastructure company that reportedlypurchased$4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips over the last two years. The U.S. and Singapore have both previously investigated Megaspeed over suspicions that the firm was illegally sharing chips with China. The Justice Department has since taken over the federal investigation into the company,The New York Timeshas reported. The story took a sudden turn on Wednesday. Citing five people who worked at Nvidia, the Times reported that Huang alsohad an extramarital relationshipwith Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of healthcare, who reports directly to him. Nvidia, Huang and Powell have not confirmed the report. Reached by a Times reporter, Huang reportedly said, “I don’t think you should be talking to me directly,” before hanging up. By early Thursday morning, Huang wasno longer CEOof the company he co-founded 33 years ago. Then, Thursday afternoon, Reuters dropped another bombshell, publishing a report alleging that Huang had yet anotherextramarital affairwith another unnamed Nvidia employee. The U.S. and China are embroiled in a fierce technological arms race to build the most advanced AI infrastructure, which could shape each country’s economic future, military prowess, and capacity for innovation. Nvidia is valuable in this competition as one of the world’s largest makers of AI chips, which are essential for accelerating AI development. But as an American company, Nvidia faces government restrictions on the sale of its most powerful chips to Chinese entities. As the controversy unfolds, we are organizing the most relevant events into a reverse-chronological timeline to keep you up to date. More reports continue to roll out that illustrate the shock and severity of Huang’s resignation from Nvidia. Bloombergreportedthat Huang looked “broken and shattered, his legendary energy depleted” by the time he surrendered his role on Wednesday night, uttering phrases like “whatever” and “I don’t care.” Separately, the Wall Street Journalreportedthat Huang had beencriticalof his CFO and current interim CEO, Colette Kress. Huang is said to have described Kress as “a deer in the headlights” during a presentation this summer, and he had described Kress as someone who could not help him steer strategy or decision-making. In ascathing lettersent to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Representative Richard Neal (D-MA) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) said they will investigate how the Trump administration handled Nvidia’s chip sales to China, especially after Trump was briefed about Huang’s relationship with a purported Chinese spy. “Although [Lutnick] and President Trump were reportedly briefed on this intelligence, the Administration did not appear to acknowledge this evident national security threat. On the contrary: despite reportedly learning of Mr. Huang’s compromising relationship last fall, President Trump granted Nvidia permission to sell its advanced H200 AI chips to China in December 2025 in exchange for a cut of the export sales,” the letter states. That same evening, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) requested that Huang and Lutnick both testify before the Senate Banking Committee. “The American people deserve answers,” Scottwroteon X. After Huang was already ousted from Nvidia, we continued to learn more incriminating claims about the former CEO. According to Reuters, Huang had a third affair with an additional, unnamed employee of Nvidia. Nvidia said its board had accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday. The company’s current CFO,Colette Kress, will take over as interim CEO while still fulfilling her CFO duties. Nvidia is expected to conduct a larger search to determine a permanent successor to Huang. Harvey C. Jones, a managing partner of Square Wave Ventures and former CEO of Synopsys, was appointed as the company’s first-ever chair of the board of directors. Jones has been on Nvidia’s board since 1993. Later in the day, Huangconfirmedthat he would testify in Congress at some point before Thanksgiving, which falls on November 26. “Jensen and I have been very at odds as some of you already know on export controls, but Nvidia is a very important company to the United States of America,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast said to reporters. “I don’t want to see anything hurt in Nvidia, but he has some very serious questions to answer.” The testimony is expected to take place behind closed doors, but Mast believes the briefing will be recorded and transcribed. After reports of a second extramarital affair, Nvidia’s board reportedly plans to meet to discuss Huang’s future at the company, per The Wall Street Journal. Stock fellabout 8%in after-hours trading on Wednesday and is down 11% in the past five days. Huang famously delegates very little and has about 60 direct reports, hehas said. The company has not had an obvious successor or a succession plan. The New York Timesreportedthat Jensen Huang also had an affair with Nvidia vice president of healthcare Kimberly Powell, who reports directly to the CEO. According to the report, Huang and Powell were captured on film “being affectionate” at a hotel during a conference earlier this year. Huang has not responded to a request from three Republican congressmen to appear for a closed-door briefing for questioning about his affair with an alleged Chinese spy. House China Committee Chairman John Moolenaar said Wednesday on Fox Business that if Huang doesn’t agree to the briefing, he’ll likely besubpoenaed. The Nvidia CEO pulled out ofupcoming speaking engagementsat the ElevenLabs Summit and Anthropic CEO Forum. Alice Huang and her family reportedly built a network of companies in China and Singapore to acquire Nvidia chips, including founding a Chinese company called Shanghai Century Litong. Founded in 2023, it became an Nvidia-preferred cloud partner, giving it priority access to chips,The Information reported. The Information also reported that Shanghai Century Litong facilitated buying $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia’s chips, including banned chips. Nvidia’s head lawyer, Tim Teter, intervened in a 2025 U.S. government probe surrounding the suspected smuggling of AI chips by Megaspeed International,Bloomberg reported. Teter contacted Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler asking questions about whether the Trump administration played a role in detaining Alice Huang. In early 2025, Alice Huang and a business partner sought China-based investors for an Asian data center, promising they had no problem in securing GPUs,the Financial Times reported. On Sunday night, President Trumpweighed inon Huang’s controversy and showed support for the Nvidia CEO. “I have not spoken to him about it. I just know he’s a fine person, but you never know what’s going on,” Trump said. When asked if Huangshould remain chief of Nvidia, Trump said, “I think so. Oh yeah, sure.” Jensen Huang wrote in aletterto Nvidia employees — which was also published as a press release — that he cheated on his wife. “I owe my family and all of you an apology,” Huang told his company. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.” Huang did not mention Alice Huang by name in the message, but linked his infidelity to “the national security concerns raised in news reports.” “Nvidia’s Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American,” Huang wrote. Nvidia shares slidover 5%the following day. Three Republican congressmen — Chairman John Moolenaar of the House Select Committee on China, Chairman Brian Mast of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Chairman Rick Crawford of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — sent a request to Huang for a closed-door joint briefing with their three committees. “Recent reports raise significant national security concerns regarding the [People’s Republic of China]’s access to sensitive U.S. technology and information,” the chairmenwrote. “The issue of PRC infiltration and access to cutting-edge U.S. technology is core to the investigative work of our three committees this Congress. It is vital that Congress determines the extent to which U.S. national security has been placed at risk.” U.S. officials had been investigating Alice Huang and Megaspeed for more than a year whenthe New York Timesbroke the story in late October that the two executives also had a close relationship. An Nvidia spokesperson denied that this relationship was something out of the ordinary. “Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected. Meetings with customers are part of a CEO’s job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year,” Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said. He added that “if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know.” U.S. officials circulated a secret memo among policymakers that warned that Megaspeed’s Alice Huang, who had a relationship with Jensen Huang, was a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security. This memo was not public knowledge until it was laterreportedby the New York Times. Secretary of State Marco Rubiosupervisedthe drafting of the memo. Around the same time, per the New York Times’report, U.S. President Donald Trump was briefed about intelligence findings that possible Chinese spy Alice Huang had formed a close relationship with Jensen Huang. Trump did not act on this information. The Nvidia CEO, anally of Trump, hasrepeatedly advocatedfor the U.S. government to let Nvidia expand its business in China. Megaspeed wasconfirmedto be under investigation by both the U.S. and Singaporean governments in October 2025. As a customer of Nvidia, Megaspeed wassuspectedof helping Chinese companies get around American embargoes on chip exports. Megaspeed, a neocloud that used Nvidia chips, had been renting computing power to Chinese internet giant Alibaba and other Chinese companies, the Times reported. A Commerce Department official who had visited Megaspeed’s data center in Malaysia in 2024 had found a hoard of Nvidia equipment that was still packed in boxes and the concern was that this equipment was being directly shipped somewhere else, like China, rather than installed and sold as a cloud service. Jensen Huang had been spotted socializing with Megaspeed executive Alice Huang as early as 2024 in Taiwan, where the Nvidia CEO was born. These investigations into Megaspeed highlighted concerns about the degree to which Nvidia is able to track its chip exports. At the time, an Nvidia spokesperson told press that the company did not have “any reason to believe products had been diverted.” “NVIDIA visited multiple Megaspeed sites yet again earlier this week and confirmed what we previously observed — Megaspeed is running a small commercial cloud, like many other companies throughout the world, as allowed by U.S. export control rules,” the Nvidia spokespersonsaidat the time.