Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia’s CEO on November 12, 2026 — not because of a competitor, not because of market forces, but because of two alleged extramarital affairs and the scrutiny that followed. The man who turned a graphics chip startup into a trillion-dollar AI empire had already admitted infidelity to Nvidia employees on November 8. What nobody expected was a second name: Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s own VP of healthcare, reportedly recorded with Huang at a company conference in San Jose, California earlier this year.
Who Is Lori Huang — and What She Actually Built
Before the leather jacket became a Silicon Valley uniform and before Nvidia’s market cap made Jensen Huang one of the wealthiest people on earth, there was Lori Huang — the woman he met studying electrical engineering at Oregon State University, long before anyone had heard of GPU architecture or generative AI. They married and built a life together that spans more than four decades, two children — Madison and Spencer Huang, both of whom work at Nvidia — and a company founded in 1993 that neither of them could have fully imagined becoming what it did.
That’s the part that cuts. Lori wasn’t a bystander to Jensen’s success — she was structurally present for all of it, the kind of partnership that quietly holds everything together while one name ends up in the headlines. As of this writing, there has been no confirmed announcement of divorce or separation. We don’t know what she’s said to him privately. But we know what was done publicly, and that’s enough to understand why this story isn’t just about a CEO stepping down.
Two Affairs, a Spy Allegation, and a Company Left Holding the Wreckage
The timeline matters here. The first reported affair involved Alice Huang — no relation to Jensen — a former executive at Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based tech firm. U.S. intelligence officials reportedly suspected Alice Huang of working on behalf of the Chinese government, raising questions about whether the relationship created any exposure around Nvidia’s advanced AI chips and their potential distribution to China. Jensen Huang addressed Nvidia employees on November 8, acknowledging infidelity and apologizing for the pain caused to his family. Nvidia launched an independent investigation. The company has stated it has no reason to believe confidential information or U.S. national security was compromised. China denied the espionage allegations.
Then came the New York Times report — citing five people familiar with the situation — which identified Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s VP of healthcare since 2008, as a second person allegedly involved with Huang. Powell oversees the company’s AI initiatives in medical imaging and drug discovery. According to the Times, the two were reportedly recorded being affectionate at a hotel during a company conference in San Jose, California in March 2026. Huang declined to discuss it when contacted. Neither Powell nor Nvidia immediately responded. The corporate governance questions this raises — a CEO in an alleged relationship with a direct-report-adjacent senior executive — are significant on their own, entirely separate from the personal dimension.
By November 12, Huang resigned as CEO, president and board member, ending more than 30 years at the helm. Colette Kress, Nvidia’s CFO, was named interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent successor. Nvidia shares fell as much as 14% on the day of the announcement. U.S. lawmakers are still seeking answers about the Alice Huang situation and what, if anything, was compromised. The company Jensen Huang spent three decades building now has to figure out what it looks like without him — and so, apparently, does the AI industry that depends on Nvidia’s chips.
What Comes Next — For Nvidia and for the Record
It is worth being precise about what is confirmed and what is not. Huang’s resignation is confirmed. His admission of infidelity to Nvidia staff is confirmed. The alleged relationship with Kimberly Powell is based on New York Times reporting and has not been independently verified. The espionage allegations involving Alice Huang have not been confirmed by the Associated Press. There is no confirmed divorce. These distinctions matter — not to soften the story, but because conflating confirmed facts with allegations is exactly how coverage like this loses credibility.
What is clear is that one of the most consequential figures in the history of artificial intelligence left his company under conditions that have nothing to do with business strategy or competitive pressure. Nvidia is worth trillions. Its chips are the infrastructure of the AI moment. And the man who built it spent the last months of his tenure managing a personal crisis that became a corporate one. Colette Kress now carries the interim weight of that. The board carries the longer-term question of succession. And Lori Huang, wherever she is, carries something else entirely.
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