Jensen Huang Must Resign
economist.com
economist.com
But that is not the case. He is the founder. A founder has a very different relationship to a company. He is its father and mother, and severing that relationship and transitioning to a CEO that does not have the same relationship is fraught with danger.
As a shareholder, for purely self interested reasons, I would be very hesitant to call for his removal.
What’s good for your portfolio and what’s good for the long term health of the company are not always the same thing.
The tragedy is resigning may avoid Jensen becoming the target of the Congress or even criminal prosecutors, now at the state level or down the line federally. (To say nothing of the coming shareholder, supplier and customer lawsuits.)
If this were just an affair, it would be nothing. If it were an affair with a customer, it could be excused with counseling. If it were an affair with a customer who turned out to be a Chinese spy, he might still be able to survive with a hiatus.
But he tried to cover it up. He lied, had Nvidia lie, had the U.S. quash investigations, and only came clean when his cronies in Congress lost. The corruption is where he loses me completely. This isn’t just a question for Nvidia shareholders.
He's 63 years old and by all reports has never even considered any sort of succession plan, which seems wildly irresponsible to me.
At the very least, even if he manages to keep his position after this event, this should be a wakeup call to NVIDIA shareholders that this is something he really needs to address and very soon. Nobody gets to do this forever.
Huang generally presides over extremely risky and thin governance for one of the most important companies. A more humble and responsible person needs to replace him.
In fact there are very good arguments that the skills needed to do one aren’t the same to do the other. Find the best person to lead today. This isn’t a video game hardware company any longer.
Is he also the nation's father and mother? Because the allegation is he put the nation's security at risk, not just the business. Or is the idea that once you found a company in some country that brings you great wealth, then you get to risk their security with impunity?
(To be clear, I am not taking a position on whether he should stay or go. I'm just pointing out your missing falls short of considering some very salient facts, and treats this like a generic founder scandal.)
If you create an environment where there are no consequences, you're inviting trouble for you as a shareholder.
If he can do this and not face serious consequences from the company, then he can do other things that are damaging, including to your bottom line.
Depending on what investigations find, it might not even matter.
Treason is one of a few (if not the only) crimes defined in the Constitution by the framers.
It is offering aid and comfort to the enemy, or taking up arms against the US government.
China is a geopolitical rival, but you have to find a good definition for "enemy" in order to charge Huang, or anyone else, with treason. The best definition would likely be any country that the United States has declared war upon. Given that we have not done that with China, I don't think that you could convince a jury that he'd committed treason.
Espionage charges? Maybe.
"These are not our friends. These are our enemies."
https://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/20/the-situation-...
I think that is good enough for a judge.
This was the 1700s and they were former British subjects. They were very much familiar with tyrants who would declare themselves the "state" and use that as a way to get those they didn't like punished for treason, usually by execution.
Maybe you had tried to foment a rebellion or given aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war, but also, maybe you had not given Big 'enry VIII a male heir like he wanted, or had committed the crime of being a Catholic while in England.
The crown could basically make up arbitrary reasons why someone could be considered a traitor and have them killed, which is a textbook example of tyranny.
In United States v. Greathouse, et al., it is stated:
> "The term “enemies,” as used in the constitutional clause defining treason (Const, art. 3, § 3), applies only to subjects of a foreign power in a state of open hostility with us; it does not embrace rebels in insurrection against their own government. [0]
We're not even firing shots in anger in skirmishes with the Chinese. Hard to say that Huang is the subject of a foreign power in a state of open hostility.
Did he break national security embargoes or espionage laws? Maybe. But treason? I don't see them getting that.
[0] https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0026.f.c...
>We're not even firing shots in anger in skirmishes with the Chinese. Hard to say that Huang is the subject of a foreign power in a state of open hostility.
But he is. In the trade war that has been running for 8+ years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_tr...
The president himself said multiple times "Whoever wins AI wins" and the only reason there are export restrictions on the technology is to prevent China from acquiring the resources to win AI, correct?
Would you say 4.8B in Nvidia AI chips is a resource that is aiding China in winning AI or not?
If you come to the same conclusion as I do, plus that the commander in chief openly states that China is the enemy, we are again in the treason territory.
> 2025 marked a significant escalation of the conflict under the second Trump administration. A series of increasing tariffs led to the US imposing a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, and China imposing a 125% tariff on American goods in response.
Why wouldn’t this satisfy the definition of
> "The term “enemies,” as used in the constitutional clause defining treason (Const, art. 3, § 3), applies only to subjects of a foreign power in a state of open hostility with us.
Is an open trade war with an ongoing escalation spiral no open hostility with the United States?
The chips got acquired by trading money with Huang for goods that are aiding the enemy in winning everything if you believe the president, so he is a subject of a foreign power in a state of open hostility with the US.
Lock him up.
He was corrupt. We have no evidence he committed treason, though if he was knowingly trying to advance China’s AI, against the will of Congress and in contravention of the law, he might have.
We need investigations. And we need him to stay in the country, possibly at home, while that happens. There are also a lot of powerful people who helped him cover up his crimes who will now call for forgiving him, possibly because what he did is worse than what we know.
I'm just reasonably sure that law wasn't the one against treason.
There is a nasty smear campaign against Jensen Huang throughout social media, cheating on his wife is one thing, political maneuvering before we even learn of what the actual damage if any was done and kneecapping an enterprise while America has a lead over others in AI is sabotage.
Jensen banged a customer and Chinese spy while advocating for lifting exports controls on China and corruptly quashing investigations into her firm [1].
He couldn’t have turned this into more of a public spectacle and concern if he tried. (Coming clean right after the Congress flipped didn’t help.)
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/09/business/economy/nvidia-m...
Selling to her data center in Malaysia, a Token Speak-easy as Mo called it, may be a bigger deal in actual effect.
Is she purely a figure from his personal life, or might she have some connection to him running NVIDIA?
Atrioc did an interesting video on the connections that are now coming to light https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3qBe7rsVo
It was not explicitly illegal because Nvidia ensured it wouldn’t be [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/09/business/economy/nvidia-m...
Megaspeed was not blacklisted. If Megaspeed did become export controlled and NVIDIA sold them chips then that's definitely a carless business decision. But lobbying the government not to blacklist a customer is not.
I don't see a compelling reason for NVIDIA to fire Huang. If stuff comes out and he was doing something fraudulent and evading export controls then I would agree that's a bad business decision. It puts NVIDIA at risk to say the least. And what NVIDIA and Huang did could even be bad for the country.
It very well could have, apart from the corruption.
Congress wrote a law designating certain categories of companies illegal to sell chips to. Commerce was in charge of implementing it. If Nvidia fucked with Commerce, that could make the sales illegal even without a destination—the law the Congress wrote controls.
>If Nvidia fucked with Commerce, that could make the sales illegal even without a destination—the law the Congress wrote controls.
This is not true. Congress did not export control Chinese companies and even if NVIDIA "fucked with Commerce" it would not retroactively make their sales illegal, because Commerce is the one setting the rules.
You have the relationship wrong with the 2018 export control law. Congress granted the power to the executive to set export controls. Congress didn't define specific companies nor broad categories of companies to export control.
>Congress has delegated to the executive branch some of its express constitutional authority to regulate foreign commerce by controlling exports.
From The U.S. Export Control System and the Export Control Reform Act of 2018. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R46814/...
It is illegal to "export...when you have 'knowledge' at the time of export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) that the item is destined for a destination, end use, or type of end user" that is prohibited by law [1]. Using a middleman to evade export restrictions is not a get-out-of-jail card.
> Congress did not export control Chinese companies
Fair enough. The existing law does, however, prohibit the sorts of transfers Nvidia made to Megaspeed without a license, which Nvidia didn't obtain [2]. (And again, quashed investigations into.)
[1] hhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-B/chapter-VII...
[2] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/01/15/2026-00...
There is a lot more to this story
Getting caught publicly making egregious unforced errors in judgment is hardly a smear campaign.
I'm not sure US law should reach into foreigners bedrooms (Or wherever they were doing it)
But it does, and it did at the time of Jensen’s alleged crimes.
If Nvidia keeps him it deserves what’s coming for it.
Plus at this point we know about nothing. Asking for him to resign is both insensitive and dumb.
He’s now the US Government’s bitch.
If they are confident he knowingly facilitated the transfer of restricted technology or sensitive information to Chinese interests they can charge him any time with treason and float having him publicly executed on livestream if they wanted to.
"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
If he knowingly aided China, and personally profited, I think getting a 4.8b payday from those weapons-grade technology transfers is a pretty good indicator that he knowingly aided China, while keeping a relationship with a foreign adversary’s intelligence asset for over a year and in that time reportedly tried to influence the commander in chief to allow for more exports of weapons-grade technology to said foreign adversary. That’s textbook treason.
Aiding them in acquiring chips they then could use to hack the us energy grid in a confrontation, develop better missile capabilities to hit US warships in a conflict with Taiwan, etc., or simply develop better cybercrime capabilities, makes you an enemy of the State.
Also, you can’t get more compromised than Chinese intelligence having sextapes of you doing weird shit naked in your black jacket to one of their intelligence assets.
The US Government owning your ass for the rest of your miserable life in a golden cage is not very fun.
How’s life for Snowden in Russia, you think?
I doubt they will let him resign, he needs to travel and be their AI clown, and every time he comes back he will be a good dog and tell his masters everything he heard and seen from all those important people he has access to.
Who in their right mind is going to sit in the same room as Jensen Huang and be confident that whatever he hears or gets from you is not going to end up either in Beijing or Washington?
How do you continue doing business with Nvidia like this, if you for very good reasons, need to have zero trust in their CEOs confidentiality?
He wasn't just trying to get some honey on his stinger. He's much more nefarious than that.
I'm not so sure about that angle. Or like, that's a very specific direction. As CEO, his responsibility is to make a product that people will buy so the company gets money and can continue. If local AI had money, he would and should have gone towards that. Companies having money and contracts doesn't mean he went out of his way to ensure local AI doesn't happen as a personal beef against some... thing?
or maybe this artificial controversy will be forgotten long before the orange man leaves the office.
I'm using the term "outrage" to describe the public's reaction to his actions. You are using the terms "very stupid" etc. to describe his actions, right? I don't see any disagreement between us.
2) I do not agree outrage implies overreaction. Here is a local news article from 2 days ago about the outrage some racist gesture caused. Do you think they are implying the negative reaction to racist gestures is overblown? https://www.wtva.com/2026/11/09/ole-miss-students-doorbell-c...
People can think something is a bad decision without having to be outraged, or have others claim they are outraged?
You can substitute in "People feel strongly about what he did and what sort of punishment he should incur" for the term "outrage" above and you will understand my meaning.
All the roads lead to he must resign or be fired.
We have to stop expecting top CEOs to be perfect, required to have spotless reputation.
Jensen is relatable. I've seen him drinking a beer or two. Signing the chest of a fan.
Trillion-dollar companies CEOs use toilet paper too!
Every hero is also a heel. Why do we have to require that top CEOs have to be the full white of the Ying Yang, without the black dot? Why? Why?
What?
Also, don’t sleep with your customers and foreign spies and don’t corruptly quash federal investigations isn’t a black dot.
You can say it's "feelings" or whatever but the right thing to do would've been to be open with your wife and family about your feelings and then get a divorce and pursue the relationship...or not have the affair at all.
If he wanted the relationship that badly, not only should he have been open with his family, but he shouldn't have done so with a spy who probably has gigabytes of "kompromat" on him.
I don't blame anyone for making "mistakes", maybe even a moment of weakness or whatever, would be different, but from the article I read, seemed like an on going relationship.
The problem is, he is perceived as an untrustworthy liar who hides things and get away with them if he can.
It'll be so much more difficult for him now to advocate for his position that NVIDIA should be selling to China in front of people who are already skeptical.
I don't think he can stay, even if it's just for that reason.
Without Jensen, the stock will tank. He has pulled NV from the brink of disaster many times, and also selected the critical investments which paid off and allowed AI to be born (CUDA), even before they made any sense whatsoever. How do you replace that kind of intuition without decreasing the potency of the company? Face it, he's the modern day Steve Jobs.
Leave your personal hatred for job killing, soul sucking AI aside for a bit:
You cannot swap CEOs like you can swap a filesystem without having severe ripple effects. Even swapping one mature filesystem to another mature filesystem has deep consequences and can even lead you to losing data.
And this is a co-founder of the company. NVIDIA is where it is today because of him.
In every video I've seen of Jensen Huang, I've seen a genuine person who wants to do good. Yes, he caved in to basic instincts but that was because he was being actively pursued.
Whether that was a mistake is only for him and his wife to decide together. It's not our decision to make or sway. We will find out their decision soon enough.
If this affects his performance as a CEO, he has to resign.
However, make no mistake that this was an attack by a foreign government to the foundational fabric on top of which all of US Domestic AI is built.
Also take into account that the U.S was going to enter into a deep recession had it not been for Domestic AI - as much as we hate AI and curse it, banks are still operating, grocery stores are still open, welders and electricians still have jobs.
If you think we have it bad now, it's provably better than what would happen in a deep recession. The last one happened in 2008 so some of you here might not have been out of school yet, but it was very, very bad.
This is a trillion dollar stake corporate espionage. This is how cold war looks like.
Spy is likely a nothing burger, but CEOs cheat on their spouse should lose job. They didn’t so far. It can start with Huang.
it would be different if he were some typical CEO that's hired in and been around for a few years, or if he were a founder 5-10 years in and great at starting a company but not suited to running it once very large (which founders often aren't)
Jensen beat the odds as a founder and CEO.
The chinese sent a female spy to make him look like a fool. Thats why all major governments use this tactic. It works on everyone, for some period of time, to some degree. Almost as if the public thinks "Why didn't he know ? Didn't she have a 'Hello I'm a Spy' sticker on at the meetup ?"
Now, The Economist aka 'the Rothchilds' aka 'the british billionaires' magazine is throwing him under the double decker for clicks.
The man has a track record of winning.
This is a speed bump, not a brick wall.
We're all apes, and he's the big monkey the little monkeys are attacking today.
Just shake it, shake it off.
It's insane to think people don't consider a successful state sponsored hack as a failing of the individual, but a spy compromising them is. It's clear that nations will go to extremes that people are unaccustomed to dealing with. Lots of people have affairs — feel free to call that a personal moral failing, but treating it as a business failing is outlandish considering how frequently it happens and how it rarely has any business impact.
EDIT: If an investigation shows he actually did break the law, then by all means skewer him at that point. Calling for his resignation before actual evidence of legal wrongdoing (other than personal moral failings) is just premature.
Most people don’t have their buddies in the White House quash the investigations into their lover’s firm [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/09/business/economy/nvidia-m...
You'll just never hear her speak of it from that perspective, because, it makes her look like the Dr. Evil parody she is.
https://www.state.gov/secretary/
Read the job description.
(She also hasn't been secretary of state for nearly 14 years, you know.)
1. Hillary took a random walk through life, and ended up Secretary of State.
or
2. It fit her personality perfectly. She was the woman for the job.
You'll figure it out eventually, as my tone isn't a factor.
The article calls for resignation. Not execution.
He can do something great again with his life. Just not while he’s spending the next year being investigated in multiple countries and going through family issues.
Yes, and that was exactly the point of sending a prostitute to compromise him.
Destabalise the enemy.
When did he become 'the enemy' ? When Joe Biden crippled GPU perf on imports to China, and China decided to make their own instead.
You don't just make your own GPU. You ruin the guys that wouldn't share theirs.
This is all just politics on the world stage, at the olympic level.
This is unnecessarily misogynistic silliness to add to your other bigotry. She's a forty-something woman and she evidently is actually CEO of a client company.
She may actually be an intelligence asset, and she may actually be manipulating him, but we don't have to resort to this tone.
1. A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.
2. A woman giver to indiscriminate lewdness; a strumpet; a harlot.
And now we know the difference between inference and implication.
Not every intelligence asset is willing and you don't know the above with any certainty.
I agree completely.
I'm sure the CEOs would love for us to believe that they are in their position because of merit.
For a place called Hacker News there isn’t much Hacker spirit, irrespective of which definition of Hacker one uses.
As a CEO, he kicks ass...
As a husband, public humiliation by memes and private humiliation by his family are in order...
How is a model minority infidelity with a woman who probably wasn't a spy, but was absolutely out to oust Lori Huang like Lauren Sanchez ousted Mackenzie Bezos worse than a felon convicted of accounting fraud put in charge of Cerebras? And don't even start on they should all be thrown out. We didn't throw out creepy, stalking, semi-assaulty womanizing Eric (piece of) Schmidt. Why don't we all just take a step back and acknowledge the model minority racism inherent in the outrage here.
Downvotes I'm sure, but I doubt anyone is going to spell out a case where JHH needs to go, but all systems normal with Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Eric Schmidt, and everyone else on that page, some of whom are likely in the Epstein files which JHH isn't.
Harper Valley PTA hypocrisy to the moon here.
It's not about the act itself. It's a data point about the man's character and judgment.
A man who cheats on his wife will cheat his investors, too.
And you didn't answer the question, how is this any worse than any other tech CEO's imbroglios beyond the currently specious assertion she's a spy?
Wow, your comment is extremely distasteful, and not just for the blatant racism and foul language. The worst is actually that you assume that I support the current US president. You are clearly a demagogue who likes to believe the worst possible things about people who disagree with you. This seems to agree with your wholesale acceptance of lying and cheating. If China doesn't work out for you, you might find a position in a Republican administration.
For the record: I am not a racist. I demand resignation of all liars and cheaters, uniformly, including the current US president. I hope that in the future you will be able to behave politely in society.
How's that demanding resignation of all liars and cheaters working out for you?
The public thinks the spy affair is a scandal, but the governments that can really hang the man see it as a round of chess.
Boards of directors and investors, we know where they vote, typically where they are legally obligated to, financial interests of shareholders.
And thats where we are right now, british billionaires magazine wants him fired. That doesn't exactly ruin his life, just being fired.
He'll survive this. Enjoy the show.
No. You haven't even tries to show that Jensen is essential to Nvidia's success. You've just said "Nvidia stock is up, Jensen is CEO, QED." That's not persuasive.
Fact is that Nvidia's stock price is mostly due to factors outside of his control. Like most CEOs,he he could be replaced with a slice of buttered toast and the same result would be achieved. So why keep him around when he's already admitted to unethical behavior? A man who cheats on his wife will cheat his investors, too.
No, I haven't, because my post was about Jensen THE MAN, and I don't own stock in Nvidia. I'm kinda pissed at Nvidia.
Lets hope Jensen gets fired, and starts Nvidia^2, so Nvidia has real competition.
Interesting times.
The public is thinking "Why did he have an affair with a business partner? (who also happened to be a spy). That is a massive conflict of interest. Was he putting Nvidia's interests first, or his own?
I am not convinced that he needs to resign, but describing this as a speed bump is utterly delusional.
Who hasn't had a momentary lapse of reason, especially when sex is involved ?
The billionaire class who could hang him understand all this.
His status in life is up for a vote. What do you think is happening ?
Status is a moving target.
Status is a popularity contest.
Status is not your identity.
He is going to keep being Jensen Huang.
A lot of people. Let's say that only half the people who have an affair admit it on polls like that. That still means that the majority of men and women are faithful to their spouses.
We're talking about the billionaire class.
You can't convince me Elon Musk cares who Jensen is sleeping with, except in the context of money and power.
This is not about sex. Its about money and power.
Compromising the marriage is about 'shame.'
They want Jensen Huang to feel shame, to cloud his judgement.
He grew up in a Baptist environment. He knows how to defend against the weapon of shame.
Sorry, I thought CEOs were mighty Atlases standing astride above the world of ordinary men. Now you're saying that we shouldn't hold them to a higher standard of behavior?
If his judgment is this poor about infidelity, I can only assume his judgment is even worse in matters of significant complexity.
The issue is that he may have just been caught effectively subverting US national security. Like, even in just the teaser paragraph, they spell that out:
>American officials think she is a Chinese spy, and that her Singaporean company is a front for smuggling the politically sensitive chips into China.
That's a very bad look. Way worse than just "looking like a fool".
A third point is that, as an Nvidia investor, I don't really care what the US government considers a "national secret" or if china gets the secret too. I care if this harm Nvidia's ability to generate revenue.
Good for you. Hopefully, the NVidia board does care about actually following the law.
Let's see what investigations by the board and congress uncover. It's only been days since the story broke. As a share holder, you may care that he has damaged Nvidia's reputation with the dealings (China & Trump) surrounding this.
The law also doesn’t apply to an American billionaire, on account of being a billionaire.
So really, nothing wrong happened here.
Its on wikipedia.
The magazine earning a reputation has nothing to do with me.
:|
What we need is an investigation and transparency into the details. Why was Trump able to negotiate a 15% profit sharing deal with Jensen shortly after Trump was informed about this? How much did Jensen know about the export control violations?
A determination for either outcome is unwarranted without more information.
Pai was CEO of a couple of Enron subsidiaries who had an affair with a stripper.
His wife divorced him, and he was forced by court to unload $250m in Enron stock just before the price crashed.
He was never charged with criminal insider trading, but he did agree to pay just over $31m in a civil suit.
He also married the stripper.
Like, being paranoid about this is kinda dumb. This is pretty much just a sweet industrial play to bootstrap their technoogy sector. Something US corporations do in many different ways.
The corruption is wide spread and out in the open.
This is called co-opting. No, normal people do not necessarily agree with you.
I can do it too: Normal people agree that, if crimes were committed, they should be in prison. It is not solved by simply resigning.
Huang did incredibly stupid things that resulted in predictably bad outcomes.
A middle manager at Nvidia would be fired for making business decisions based on a romantic relationship. Huang should be held to an even higher standard.
Going to prison for just having an affair would make no sense, normal people agree.
>Huang did incredibly stupid things that resulted in predictably bad outcomes.
Such as? Do you know something the rest of us do not, or is it just speculation on your end?
Non-white tech founder does the same? Fire him, NOW!
Meanwhile Zuck is the only founder that's still a respectable family man, and yet he's pilloried left and right.
No one gets punished for crimes. You get punished for getting caught.
He should probably go to jail (after a fair trial, of course).
Even with the few public facts we have now, I don't know how a reasonable person could conclude that it isn't extremely likely that he knew all about the export control diversions that were going on. He would have to be an idiot not to, and he clearly isn't an idiot.
That points to him being complicit in very serious (20 year sentence) crimes. https://www.bis.gov/enforcement/penalties
Of course there's no way a centibillionaire is going to do 20 days in jail, let alone 20 years (because we don't live in a society with an actually functioning rule of law), but resigning and disappearing from public life is getting off easy here.
The same legal system that protects you applies to everyone else billionaire or not.
There are two separate aspects to his relationship that are important:
1) Did he know she was a Chinese spy? Maybe not. I have no idea. It would certainly be hard to prove.
2) Did he know her company was diverting stock to the Chinese market? Almost certainly. He would have to be an actual moron to not realize this years ago, and he isn't a moron. I'd be shocked if after investigation that enough evidence didn't come to light to prove without a shadow of a doubt that he knew about the diversion the whole time.
#2 is where his real legal troubles lie. #1 is just the dramatic clickbait intrigue but not really what is likely to sink him.
The only way #1 is really important is in that it is drawing a lot of attention to looking into #2 (which was, by many reports, already a widely known open secret despite the illegality).