"I'm just a bastard": The final moments of Jensen Huang stepping down as NVIDIA CEO

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned unconditionally late Wednesday after weeks of mounting pressure over a disclosed extramarital affair, capping a rapid fall for the executive who built the company into a multi-trillion-dollar AI chip giant. The crisis escalated after the Financial Times reported on November 6 that Huang's relationship with Alice Huang—initially described as routine business contact—was in fact romantic; a second alleged affair, with Nvidia healthcare vice president Kimberly Powell, surfaced Wednesday, prompting an emergency board meeting that ran late into the night. The board named CFO Colette Kress interim CEO, and she moved quickly to reassure staff ahead of Nvidia's earnings report on November 17, which analysts expect to show sales nearly doubling year over year. Huang's exit leaves a succession vacuum at a company with roughly 60 executives reporting directly to him and no established succession plan, with AMD's Lisa Su and Arm's Rene Haas among names floated as possible candidates. Huang is expected to testify before Congress in coming weeks about his ties to Alice Huang and whether the relationship jeopardized access to Nvidia's most sensitive chip technology.