Nvidia Corp. on Thursday named its chief financial officer as interim chief executive after founder Jensen Huang stepped down amid reports of extramarital affairs, including with a woman alleged to be a Chinese intelligence asset, triggering a sharp sell-off that wiped more than $600 billion from the company’s market value.
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, takes over on an interim basis. The board also appointed Harvey C. Jones, a longtime venture investor, as its first-ever chair.
The $4.2 trillion chipmaker, the dominant supplier of processors that power advanced artificial intelligence systems, saw its shares drop roughly 10 percent in early trading as U.S. markets opened. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6 percent.
Nvidia’s board met late Wednesday after reports that Huang, 63, had been involved with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, Nvidia’s main partner in Southeast Asia. Megaspeed has faced scrutiny over whether it helped Chinese firms obtain Nvidia chips subject to U.S. export controls. The board had hired an outside law firm to investigate the relationship.
U.S. authorities, including the FBI and Congress, have opened inquiries, and Nvidia faces a shareholder class-action lawsuit. The affair has heightened national security concerns in Washington, which restricts advanced chip sales to China over fears the technology could aid the Chinese military or intelligence services.
Huang, a co-founder who remains one of Nvidia’s largest individual shareholders with about 3.6 percent of the stock, is a close ally of President Donald Trump and has advocated easing U.S. restrictions on chip exports to China. Trump said earlier this week that Huang told him he had “absolutely no idea” he was involved with an intelligence operative.
Separately, the New York Times reported that Huang also had a relationship with a Nvidia vice president who reported to him, according to people familiar with the matter.
Nvidia’s stock has fallen to levels not seen in more than a decade since the scandal emerged, Reuters reported.
