Some Nvidia directors favor appointing Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO as the board meets to decide whether to oust co-founder Jensen Huang, Semafor and Reuters reported. The board has been working with an outside search firm to identify permanent succession candidates and seeks to name a temporary leader as quickly as possible.
The deliberations follow a Wall Street Journal report that the board is preparing to remove Huang after a New York Times report implicated him in a second extramarital affair, this time with healthcare Vice President Kimberly Powell, who reports directly to him. Five people who worked at Nvidia told the Times about the relationship with Powell, and two said the pair were filmed being affectionate at a San Jose hotel during a March conference before Huang’s security team detained the bystander and offered a nondisclosure agreement. When reached by the Times, Huang said “I don’t think you should be talking to me directly” and hung up, while Powell canceled a scheduled Thursday appearance at the Milken Future of Health Summit.
Nvidia shares fell more than 8% to about $159 in extended trading Wednesday as the board weighed removing the only chief executive in its 33 year history, who has about 60 direct reports and no named successor. The company’s independent directors had already hired Wachtell Lipton partner Joon H. Kim to investigate Huang’s admitted affair with Megaspeed founder Alice Huang, whom US intelligence officials suspect of spying for China and who Bloomberg reported has returned to live in Beijing.
