Nvidia's board of directors is preparing to remove co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang from the company he has led for three decades, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday in an exclusive, and the chipmaker's shares fell in after-hours trading as the news spread.
Reuters, CBS News and NBC News quickly confirmed the Journal's reporting, and The New York Times reported separately that the board is meeting to discuss Huang's future. Bloomberg added that Nvidia is working with an outside firm to identify potential CEO candidates — a step that suggests the board's contingency planning has moved beyond discussion and into succession mechanics.
For more context on this story, see our AI news coverage.
Why the board is moving now
The Journal's report caps an extraordinary ten days for the world's most valuable chipmaker. On November 8, Huang published an extraordinary apology letter to employees on Nvidia's own newsroom, writing: "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."
In that same message, Huang confirmed that Nvidia's board had initiated an independent investigation into national security concerns raised in news reports, and said he supported the probe and would cooperate fully. "I love our country and our company," he wrote. "I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America's national security."
The national security angle stems from earlier reporting, including by the Financial Times, alleging a romantic connection between Huang and a woman whom U.S. officials suspected of acting as a Chinese intelligence asset. On Wednesday, The New York Times escalated the personal scandal further, reporting that Huang had also had a relationship with an Nvidia executive who reported directly to him — a claim that, if pursued by the board, touches directly on corporate governance rather than private conduct.
Congress closes in
The political pressure on Nvidia has grown in parallel. House Republicans are pushing for Huang to appear at a closed-door November 18 briefing about his contacts with the woman at the center of the intelligence allegations, Reuters reported, and lawmakers have floated a subpoena if he does not appear voluntarily.
President Donald Trump told ABC News that Huang had told him he "didn't know" the woman he was involved with was allegedly a Chinese agent. The Washington Post and other outlets have reported that Commerce Department officials were warned about the relationship while export-control policy toward China was being shaped — an allegation that keeps the story anchored to the multibillion-dollar question of which chips China is allowed to buy.
Markets react
Nvidia shares dropped in after-hours trading Wednesday as the ouster reports spread, with CNBC, MarketWatch and Barron's all documenting the sell-off. The stock has been the single largest engine of the AI-driven market rally, and Huang — recognizable for his black leather jacket and three-decade tenure — has been the face of the AI computing boom.
Not every analyst sees the company's prospects as tied to its founder. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management told CNBC that he expects demand for Nvidia's chips to outlast Huang's exit, arguing that the underlying appetite for AI computing infrastructure is the real driver of the company's revenue.
The Wall Street Journal's analysis desk framed the deeper problem bluntly in a separate piece: the spy scandal has laid bare a governance vacuum at the top of one of America's most strategically important companies. The board now finds itself weighing founder-removal mechanics at a moment when Nvidia's valuation, its export-control exposure, and its sprawling web of AI financing deals all sit in the same balance.
What happens next
Neither the board nor the company has confirmed that a removal decision has been made. The Journal characterized the situation as preparation — the board moving pieces into place — rather than a final vote. Huang's own public posture, stated in his November 8 letter, is that he is "fully committed to NVIDIA" and will "work to earn back" the confidence of the board, partners and shareholders.
The November 18 closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill now looms as the next fixed point on the calendar. If Huang appears, he will face lawmakers who have already floated a subpoena; if he does not, the confrontation could escalate within days.
For a company that supplies the hardware underpinning nearly every frontier AI model — from OpenAI and Anthropic to Meta and Google — the question is no longer only whether Jensen Huang survives as CEO. It is whether the governance structures around the AI industry's most important supplier can keep pace with the political and security scrutiny that the industry's scale has now attracted.
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