Nvidia's board moves to oust CEO Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang built Nvidia 33 years ago and has run it ever since. On Nov. 11, the Wall Street Journal reported his board is now preparing to remove him. The trigger is a second alleged affair. This one is with an Nvidia executive who reported to him. It comes on top of an earlier alleged affair involving a suspected Chinese spy, first reported Nov. 8. Nvidia's stock sank as much as 10% that evening.

Huang isn't just any CEO. He's Nvidia's founder. The company he built now sits at the center of the AI industry. Nearly every major AI lab buys its most powerful chips from him. That's part of why this is such a mess for the board. There's no obvious successor. Investors have treated Huang as inseparable from Nvidia's stock price for years. The China-spy angle makes this scandal even messier for the board.

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Will the board actually go through with it? Firing the only CEO a company this valuable has ever had is not a small step. Nvidia's stock has already fallen roughly 20% since the first affair came out. Whatever the board decides this week says a lot about how serious this scandal really is.