Nvidia Board Probes CEO Jensen Huang Over Alleged Affair With Purported Chinese Spy

Nvidia's board has opened an investigation into chief executive Jensen Huang after revelations that he had an affair with a purported Chinese spy. The inquiry puts the private life of one of the most visible figures in the AI boom under scrutiny. His company's chips are essential to the technology, and he has become one of its public faces.

The source material does not describe what the investigation covers or how long it may run. It also gives no detail about the alleged affair or the woman at its center, who is described only as a purported spy. What it does offer is a portrait of the man, and of why his position matters so much to the company.

Nvidia is now worth more than US$4 trillion, which makes it one of the most valuable companies in the world. Its start was far humbler. In 1993, three engineers, Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, met at a Denny's diner in San Jose, California, in what is now the heart of Silicon Valley. They talked about building a chip that would make video-game graphics faster and more realistic. That conversation, and the ones after it, led to the founding of Nvidia.

Huang knew the restaurant well. He worked at a Denny's as a dishwasher, busboy and waiter from 1978 to 1983, and on his LinkedIn profile those years are one of only two jobs he lists. The other is founder and chief executive of Nvidia.

He was born in Taiwan and spent time in Thailand, where his father moved the family for work. At 9, he and his older brother were sent to the United States, where they lived with an uncle in Tacoma, Washington. The uncle enrolled them at the Oneida Baptist Institute in Kentucky, thinking it was a prestigious boarding school. It was a religious reform school. Because the institute was only a high school then, the boys lived in the dorm and attended a local public elementary school. Huang has told interviewers that he scrubbed toilets, taught an illiterate bunk mate to read, and was bullied for being Chinese. "The kids were really tough," he told NPR in 2012, recalling that they all carried pocket knives. Even so, he has said he loved his time there. He and his wife, Lori, donated US$2 million to the institute for a new girls dorm and classroom, which opened in 2019.

His parents later came to the United States, and the family reunited in Oregon. He graduated high school early after skipping two grades. At Oregon State University, he studied electrical engineering in a class of about 250 students, only three of them women. One was Lori, who was on his lab team. In a 2025 interview with the Computer History Museum, he recalled proposing that they do homework together every weekend, which he described as his way of asking her out. The couple worked as chip designers in Silicon Valley, and Huang earned a graduate degree from Stanford in 1992. They reportedly have two children.

Huang is known for wearing a black leather jacket at product launches and developer conferences, a signature look that recalls Steve Jobs and his black turtlenecks. The comparison may extend to how he is seen, as a singular kind of executive. Analysts say that matters now. Dan Ives, a partner at Yorkville Ives & Co., told The Associated Press that Huang is a core part of Nvidia's fabric and a huge asset. "That's the worry here, that Jensen's not replaceable," he said. "Nvidia without Jensen is a much different company."

What to watch is whether the board's investigation leads to any decision about Huang's role, which would reshape the leadership of one of the world's most valuable companies.