The unfolding Jensen Huang scandal: a timeline

Nvidia co-founder and now former CEO 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 he cheated on his wife of 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, is a Chinese spy who 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 reportedly purchased $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 Times has reported. The story took a sudden turn on Wednesday. Citing five people who worked at Nvidia, the Times reported that Huang also had an extramarital relationship with 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 was no longer CEO of the company he co-founded 33 years ago. Then, Thursday afternoon, Reuters dropped another bombshell, publishing a report alleging that Huang had yet another extramarital affair with 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. November 13, 2026: Huang was not confident in his successor, Colette Kress; reports describe Huang as ‘broken’ More reports continue to roll out that illustrate the shock and severity of Huang’s resignation from Nvidia. Bloomberg reported that 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 Journal reported that Huang had been critical of 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. November 12, 2026: Democrats launch investigation into Nvidia; Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick summoned to testify before Senate Banking Committee In a scathing letter sent 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,” Scott wrote on X. November 12, 2026: Huang was having a third affair with another Nvidia employee, according to Reuters 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. November 12, 2026: Jensen Huang resigns, CFO Colette Kress named as interim CEO; Huang agrees to testify before Congress 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, Huang confirmed that 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. November 11, 2026: Nvidia’s stock drops as board reportedly preps to oust CEO Jensen Huang 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 fell about 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, he has said . The company has not had an obvious successor or a succession plan. November 11, 2026: Huang also had an affair with an Nvidia executive who reports to him, NYT says The New York Times reported that 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. November 11, 2026: Congress plans to subpoena Huang to answer questions about affair 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 be subpoenaed . November 9, 2026: Huang pulls out of various speaking engagements The Nvidia CEO pulled out of upcoming speaking engagements at the ElevenLabs Summit and Anthropic CEO Forum. November 9-10, 2026: Details emerge about the business relationships between Nvidia and the alleged spy 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 adm