Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang faces serious pressure after a report alleged a second extramarital relationship with a senior company executive. Meanwhile, traders on Polymarket have put his odds of exiting at 88%.
Nvidia's board held a closed-door meeting to decide on a successor. Here are some of the names who could take his place.
Second Affair Report Puts Huang's CEO Role at Risk
A recent New York Times report claims that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had a second extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, 48, the company's vice president of healthcare, who reports directly to him.
Huang is already under investigation over reports of a relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed, whom U.S. intelligence identified as a suspected Chinese spy.
With the second affair now reported, concerns have arisen about a possible breach of Nvidia's code of conduct, which instructs employees to avoid personal relationships that could create conflicts of interest. Similar issues have previously cost other high-profile CEOs their jobs.
The news weighed on Nvidia shares, which fell more than 10% within hours. NVDA was trading at $173.70.
Polymarket odds of Huang resigning or being removed by the end of 2026 briefly reached 88%. On Kalshi, traders priced the chance of him leaving the CEO role by December 1 at 80%.
Nvidia Holds Emergency Board Meeting Over Huang's Future
On November 11, Nvidia's board reportedly held a closed-door emergency meeting to decide whether Jensen Huang should remain CEO.
Nvidia has 11 board members, 10 of whom are independent directors. Under company rules, a simple majority of the independent directors can remove Huang as CEO, with or without cause. Huang also holds no special voting rights that would let him block such a decision.
The board hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz on November 10 to investigate both matters.
The probe will cover both his reported relationship with Alice Huang, who is suspected of links to Chinese intelligence, and the newly reported relationship with Nvidia Vice President Kimberly Powell.
Who Could Become Nvidia’s Next CEO?
Nvidia has not named an official successor, but several executives are being discussed as possible replacements.
Colette Kress, Nvidia's CFO, is reportedly the leading internal candidate for an interim role. Ian Buck, a senior AI executive who has played a major role in Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem, is also being considered as a potential long-term successor.
Other names under discussion include hardware engineering executive Andrew Bell, Nvidia executives Jeff Fisher and Bryan Catanzaro, co-founder Chris Malachowsky, and Rene Haas, CEO of Arm, as well as Spencer Huang, Madison Huang and Nico Caprez.
External names include Rene Haas, CEO of Arm; Lisa Su, CEO of AMD; Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud; Matt Garman, CEO of AWS; Tim Cook, Apple's executive chairman; and Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO.
The board's decision will determine whether the company enters a new leadership era just days before its November 17 third-quarter earnings report.
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