Citing anonymous sources, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday 11 November that Nvidia’s board could meet to decide Huang’s future as early as that day. Reuters, citing its own source, also reported that the meeting would take place late on Wednesday. By Wednesday evening the board had not issued a statement, the BBC said, and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Huang, 63, is one of Nvidia’s founders and has led the company for more than 30 years. Under the company’s bylaws, the board can remove him by majority vote, even without cause. The board has 11 members, and the company considers all of them except Huang independent. As recently as Sunday, the board said it had confidence in Huang.

A second affair and suspected spying

The New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing five people who worked at Nvidia, that Huang had a relationship with Kimberly Powell. Powell is Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare and reports directly to Huang. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. When reached by phone, Huang said the reporter should not be speaking to him directly and ended the call, the NYT reported.

Huang is also reported to have had a relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, an Nvidia customer. CNBC said the NYT reported on 29 October that US officials had concluded Alice Huang was an asset used by Chinese intelligence. The officials concluded that she passed information to Beijing and possibly steered Nvidia’s AI chips to China. China has rejected the spying allegations, the BBC reported.

In a message to staff on Sunday 8 November, Jensen Huang admitted being unfaithful to his wife but gave no details of the affair. The board launched an external investigation. President Donald Trump said the FBI was also investigating the matter.

Shares fall, search for a successor under way

Nvidia’s shares fell more than 8 per cent in after-hours trading following the WSJ report, Reuters said. The BBC reported falls of almost 7.5 per cent and 8.6 per cent during the evening. If the decline holds, Nvidia will have lost about $600 billion in market value since the board announced its investigation, by Reuters’ calculation.

The board has been working with an outside firm to identify potential successors to Huang, Bloomberg reported, as cited by Reuters. Reuters said there was no obvious successor. Armina Rosenberg, a portfolio manager at Minotaur Capital, which holds Nvidia shares, considers chief financial officer Colette Kress a natural interim chief executive.

On the prediction market Polymarket, the probability of Huang resigning or being removed by the end of the year rose to 88 per cent. The market’s favourite to succeed him was Ian Buck, who runs the business serving data centre customers.

Nvidia will report its quarterly results on 17 November.