Bill Ackman and Elon Musk are among the powerful business leaders backing Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang amid revelations of his affair with an alleged Chinese spy – as investors hope the longtime exec will be able to survive the scandal.
Nvidia – one of the world’s most valuable companies, worth more than $4 trillion – is a largely founder-driven business. Huang has been leading the firm for more than 30 years since he co-founded it and has become synonymous with the AI boom itself.
Huang currently has 60 direct reports, no clear successor and a close relationship with President Trump – all of which have stakeholders hoping he’ll remain at the firm, even after he admitted to an affair with Alice Huang, no relation, an alleged Chinese government spy.
Patrick Riccards, a crisis communications expert and former consultant for the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, told The Post that Nvidia execs are likely hoping to draw out their investigation as long as possible in hopes that the media and public move on to the next scandal.
“He’s [Huang] demonstrated his ability to navigate what are very uncertain waters and that has made his board and everybody who owns a piece of this company very, very happy,” Riccards said. “If you get in there and you decide you’re going to replace him … that’s the sort of disruption that could kill a company and nobody wants to see that.”
Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Ackman quickly came to Huang’s defense Sunday, after Huang admitted to marital infidelity and wrote an email apologizing to his family and colleagues.
“An alert: @JensenHuang is human. And he is an incredible human. Even incredible humans make mistakes. He takes full responsibility as he should. We should all support him and his family. Onward,” Ackman wrote in a post on X Sunday.
“I am not suggesting he gets a free pass,” he clarified in a second post. “If indeed this is more than an affair, then it is an [sic] obviously a real problem. I like the guy. He has done a lot of good for the world and I hope the damage here is minimal. That is, I am hoping for a simple affair, not a risk to our national security.”
Musk also replied “I agree” to a post from Shaun Maguire, a venture capitalist and partner at Sequoia, who wrote that while Huang “did something incredibly dumb … my guess is there was no bad intention…and I believe Jensen is irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership.”
President Trump also defended Huang on Sunday, telling reporters that he’s an “honorable guy” and a “fine person,” saying: “He’s done an amazing job for our country.”
“I think he probably has an excuse for it. You have to hear it,” the president said, adding that he hasn’t yet spoken to the CEO.
Dan Ives, tech analyst and partner at Yorkville Ives & Co, said despite the wild scandal, any talk of replacing Huang is “comedy.” Nvidia’s chips are about two to three years ahead of Chinese rivals, he said.
“You’re talking about what I would view as the torchbearer – the leader of AI technology – not just in the US but globally,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
Dan Gallagher, an analyst at Washington Post Intelligence, argued that Huang has made himself largely indispensable by avoiding traditional bureaucracy – instead maintaining lots of direct reports – and avoiding a designated public successor.
“It’s very hard to envision Nvidia run by anybody else,” Gallagher told Axios. “I don’t know if anybody’s going to know how to value Nvidia” without him, he added.
Riccards added that Nvidia is almost certainly working with crisis professionals and lawyers, as well as trying to work closely with investigators to make sure their probe of Huang is as narrow as possible.
“It’s going to be really difficult, quite frankly, for any of them to find cold, hard proof that she’s a Chinese spy. It’s not like the Chinese government are going to open up their books,” Riccards said.
Nvidia’s investigation “will confirm that he’s had an affair for X number of years, that he’s had it with this woman, but they won’t be able to confirm any specific role she has played in terms of intelligence community for the Chinese government. I can write you that report right now,” he added.
Huang will also likely try to exude a sense of normalcy by resuming media interviews, meetings with world leaders and public appearances as soon as possible, he predicted.