Nvidia's board signals Jensen Huang is too big to fire

Nvidia's board has declared it has confidence in chief executive Jensen Huang on the same day he apologised for an affair with a woman US intelligence services flagged as a Chinese spy, and as the company's market value fell by more than US$1-trillion over the past month.

Huang, who has led Nvidia since founding it in 1993, told employees, the board, partners and shareholders they "deserve better from me" and that he had "fallen short" of his responsibility to be worthy of their trust. The woman, named Alice Huang and unrelated to the CEO, is a Chinese citizen and an executive at Singapore-based data centre operator Megaspeed, a major Nvidia customer. Chinese authorities deny she is a government agent.

The board said it was investigating whether Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, but issued its vote of confidence in the same statement. Short seller Culper Research alleged in a 40-page May report, "The China Problem", that Huang had an "uncomfortably close relationship" with the Megaspeed executive and that Megaspeed circumvented US trade restrictions by smuggling Nvidia chips to Chinese companies. According to Token Times, US intelligence services told the White House roughly a year ago that the affair was a potential issue in relations with China.

Nvidia's stock is down 23 per cent over the past month as the AI sector sold off and news of the CEO's conduct spread. The board, which includes executives from venture capital funds and investment banks, has no obvious successor to the 63-year-old Huang, whose leadership team includes several of his children. The sell-off points to investor unease that the directors have yet to address.