The situation at the highest levels of AI and also some graphics cards if you insist company Nvidia continues to look, well, less than ideal. CEO Jensen Huang, he of the reported extramarital affair with a suspected Chinese spy, now appears to potentially be on the verge of being chucked out of the window of a black and green corporate tower, following a report claiming that he had a second alleged affair with an executive who reports to him.
The New York Times report that Huang’s second alleged extramarital affair was with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, responsible for the company’s tech being adopted in the medical field for the likes of imaging and aiding in drug discovery. If that’s the case, at least this time there won’t be any strongly-worded denials of espionage from the Chinese government, though it would still very much be an internal nightmare for Nvidia.
So, Huang has so far not caused more than one international incident with his alleged infidelity. Still, Nvidia’s board are reportedly preparing to oust the CEO from his post. That’s according to the Wall Street Journal, with other publications currently only going as far as reporting that the board are weighing up whether to give Huang the boot.
Earlier this week, Nvidia shareholders filed a lawsuit in California against the company over claims that they were misled regarding Huang’s alleged affair with the suspected Chinese spy. Nvidia’s shares have dipped following the reports of the alleged affairs.
With Huang potentially poised to go, chatter about possible successors has already kicked off. Elon Musk, meanwhile, has taken to the social media hellscape he owns to suggest he’d be up for hiring Huang if the exec is ousted from Nvidia. Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney is also on there calling for Huang’s job to be saved, because of course he is.
The question all of this has left me with, aside from wondering why people in real world power insist on behaving like they’ve gotten a bit bored in the middle of a Crusader Kings 3 session, is this: is there someone on hand who can try to describe 63-year-old nerdy businessman Jensen Huang like he’s some sort of irresistibly sexy heartthrob? “Huang isn’t the usual CEO. He is a charismatic, leather-jacket-wearing apostle of Nvidia chips who built the company on processors for video games, transformed it into an artificial intelligence machine, and, in turn, created the most valuable company in the world.”
Phwoar. Thanks, Reuters.
