In brief
- Jensen Huang resigned Thursday as Nvidia’s CEO after 33 years, following reports of three extramarital affairs—one involving an executive U.S. intelligence reportedly suspected of China ties.
- Nvidia’s stock plunged over 14% before recovering to close down ~4.6%; tech, AI and crypto founders called the ouster a “massive mistake,” while 1,600-plus employee comments pushed to reinstate him.
- The board has reportedly approached Arm CEO Rene Haas as a successor; the turmoil matters for crypto given Nvidia’s grip on AI data-center infrastructure, with earnings due Nov. 17.
In the span of a few days, the most powerful executive in artificial intelligence went from untouchable to unemployed.
Jensen Huang, who built Nvidia from a graphics-card maker into the roughly $4 trillion engine of the AI boom, resigned Thursday after 33 years, felled not by a bad earnings report but by a scandal with the texture of a spy thriller.
Here’s how a defining week for AI, and by extension crypto, unfolded.
The crisis began with reports that Huang had grown close to Alice Huang (no relation), an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, one of Nvidia’s largest Southeast Asian customers,
