Former Megaspeed managing director and accused Chinese spy Alice Huang apparently wasn’t Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s only extramarital side piece. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the AI titan had a second affair with one of his subordinates, citing five sources. The Wall Street Journal reported revelations of a second affair have jolted Nvidia’s usually deferential board into holding an immediate meeting and preparing the executive’s immediate ouster, which may come as soon tonight.
The other party in the affair is Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, sources told The Times. Such relationships are verboten under Nvidia corporate policy (as they generally are at any company with a functional HR department). Two of the sources told The Times that Jensen Huang and Powell were videotaped “being affectionate at a San Jose, Calif., hotel during a Nvidia conference in March,” though the paper didn’t obtain the video.
“Three people briefed on the incident” told the Times that Jensen Huang’s security then cornered the person filming and attempted to convince them to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
The Times contacted Jensen Huang by phone, to which he responded, “I don’t think you should be talking to me directly.” Then he hung up—though it’s anyone’s guess whether his next call was to warn his wife, Lori, or his legal team.
Nvidia stock crashed within minutes of the report and was down over 8% in after-hours trading as of early Wednesday evening. There is reportedly no succession plan in place should Jensen Huang cease to be CEO, a highly unusual choice for any large firm, let alone one that is continually in the running for world’s most valuable company. Bloomberg reported that Nvidia has already enlisted an “outside firm” to explore candidates to replace him.
Jensen Huang’s affair with the suspected spy, who reportedly sought to influence him towards lobbying for more AI chip exports to China, is already a PR crisis for the executive and quickly took the shape of a greater scandal. Alice Huang resigned as a Megaspeed managing director in October 2023, according to CBS, but reports have indicated she continued to represent Megaspeed in interactions with Nvidia. A 40-page report from short-seller Culper Research released earlier this year cited a current Megaspeed employee who said Alice Huang is “actually still our boss,” suggesting she was running or otherwise still an executive at the company.
A Republican senator, North Dakota’s Sen. Kevin Cramer, has already called for Jensen Huang’s resignation as CEO. Questions are also mounting about what President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet, particularly Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, knew about the fiasco and when—the administration reportedly learned about the allegations months ago, but took no action.
One White House source and another “familiar with the matter” told the Washington Post that the Trump administration would not intervene in the Nvidia board’s decision. Boards typically pick CEOs of private companies, not presidents, and regulators usually don’t have a say in leadership decisions unless something at a company has gone very, very wrong.
Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives and colleagues wrote in a statement that Jensen Huang’s days as CEO may be down to… well, less than a day.
“In our view the writing is on the wall that Jensen’s days at Nvidia could be numbered and we would expect this to be a very fluid situation over the next 48 hours,” the analysts wrote. They called it a “black eye moment” for the CEO that has generated an unwelcome “spider web of complexity” across the global tech sector.
The analysts added they assessed Nvidia shares at $300 with the CEO in charge and $225 if he was not.
“Jensen is not replaceable by another CEO or group of interim executives, but Nvidia likely now has to move on without Jensen at the helm which seemed like a Twilight Zone episode narrative before Sunday afternoon when the news broke,” they concluded.
Nvidia and Powell didn’t respond to The Times’s request for comment (nor did the company immediately respond to another from Gizmodo). We’ll update if we hear back.
This is a breaking news story and may be updated as more information becomes available.
Latest update: 9:12 p.m. on 11/11/2026: This story has been updated with a statement from Yorkville Ives. Its headline has also been updated.
