Jensen Huang, the co-founder and chief executive of the Silicon Valley chip giant Nvidia, resigned on Thursday, according to the company’s board of directors, capping a swift, stunning fall for one of the most powerful figures in the A.I. boom.
Huang was having extramarital affairs with two women, an executive who reported to him and a woman whom US intelligence agencies concluded was a Chinese spy.
Jensen Huang was lobbying Trump and Washington to loosen restrictions on chips sales to China. In December, Trump gave Huang permission to sell an older but still powerful chip, the H200, to China. Before those chips could be sold, the Commerce Department was required to review the companies involved for national security risks.
But some of the Chinese firms cleared to buy or handle Nvidia’s chips have empty offices in China, and analysts believe they may be front companies. Others have ties to companies that have been placed on a U.S. trade blacklist over national security concerns, or work as military contractors in China.
Huang has been central to the AI boom, not only in producing the chips that run most AI models, but in the data center push that has been touted as driver of an economic boom in the United States.
Punchbowl News reports that Huang is Trump’s favorite tech executive, as he has an articulate and positive vision for AI that many in the tech industry lack. He has swayed many China hawks in Congress to allow sales of chips to China.
In the demise of Huang, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will be on the hook for not taking a harder line on the security issue that has developed with Huang.
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer, will serve as interim chief executive while the search for a permanent replacement is carried out, Nvidia’s 10-member board said in a statement.