Jensen Huang’s leather jacket has begun to peel—for reasons that have surprised everyone. 

Over the years, as NVIDIA’s AI dominance ballooned, so did Huang’s persona. Whether sharing a shot with Samsung’s chairman, taking Donald Trump’s call on stage, or playfully bullying SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son for selling NVIDIA shares too early, Huang rarely missed a chance to exude the stature of a charismatic CEO leading one of the world's most valuable companies. 

His candid, unscripted, and unhinged persona has a name—‘Jensanity’. 

For years, investors have worried about what could eventually crack NVIDIA’s extraordinary run. Would it be the dreaded circular financing, an overheated data centre buildout, or the possibility that the AI boom was turning into a bubble?

Instead, the threat has emerged from a series of unexpected events.

An investigation by The New York Times revealed that Huang had developed a close relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, whom US intelligence agencies believe was gathering information for Beijing. The Financial Times later reported that the relationship was romantic, citing people familiar with a classified US intelligence memo.

In an apology letter, Huang admitted to being unfaithful to his wife and family. 

Now, both the FBI and the US Congress are probing the company over national security concerns.

NVIDIA has maintained that it has no reason to believe its trade secrets or US national security were compromised. However, the company's board has initiated an independent investigation.

What If Huang Steps Down?

But how much of NVIDIA's success is attributable to Huang himself? And how detrimental would his departure be to the company?

“In day-to-day operations, less than people think,” Patrick Moorhead, CEO of advisory firm Moor Insights, tells AIM. “In direction, almost all of it.”

While NVIDIA's next quarterly results may not be affected by the developments, given that its product roadmap and business commitments are already in place, Moorhead believes Huang's departure could have longer-term consequences.

“Nobody else can run a company with about 60 direct reports, and there's no named successor,” he says.

Since co-founding NVIDIA in 1993, Huang has remained its president, CEO, and a board member. He has also built an unusually flat management structure, at one point saying that as many as 60 executives reported directly to him.

His departure could make NVIDIA more conventional, with additional management layers and a more traditional organisational structure. However, it is not immediately clear who could fill his shoes, or who within the company would be willing or able to do so.

Paul Triolo, Partner and Head of Technology for Asia and the Americas at DGA Group, notes, “His [Huang’s] personal relations with the CEOs of leading tech companies and industry savvy would be difficult to replace.”

However, Triolo notes that NVIDIA's underlying value is built on its products and its ability to keep innovating and working with industry leaders. None of this would fundamentally change if Huang were forced to step down or step back.

“In the short term, investor confidence has been shaken because of the high-profile nature of the media saturation coverage and the potential for reputational and other risks going forward,” Triolo adds.

His wife Lori Huang hasn’t yet made any public statement. But she has significant financial interests in NVIDIA through the family’s investment trusts. 

The company’s latest proxy filing indicates she may be deemed to share beneficial ownership of approximately 742 million NVIDIA shares alongside her husband, although it does not specify individual ownership.

Huang’s Influence Extends to Washington

Huang's influence has extended well beyond NVIDIA's operations. Beyond his relationship with President Trump, he has become an important voice in US technology and AI policy.

In March 2026, Trump formally appointed him to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which advises the administration on emerging technologies and American technological competitiveness.

While Washington maintained stringent restrictions on advanced GPU exports to China, Huang repeatedly argued that the policy was counterproductive. He said the restrictions were pushing Chinese companies towards domestic chipmakers, accelerating their development and costing NVIDIA market share.

Following discussions with Huang, the Trump administration eventually relaxed some restrictions, allowing NVIDIA to sell its H200 chips to approved Chinese customers in December 2025.

His position on China is now being scrutinised in light of the allegations surrounding Alice Huang. However, Bernstein, the investment research and brokerage firm, questioned whether any additional influence was necessary in the first place.

In its assessment shared with AIM, the firm noted that Huang had been advocating for greater access to the Chinese market for years. His efforts, meanwhile, had yielded limited results, with NVIDIA's China sales remaining low.

Bernstein also pointed out that the H20 and H200 chips currently permitted for export were several generations behind the state of the art. Moreover, Chinese customers were not buying these chips in significant numbers, as Beijing increasingly prioritised domestic alternatives.

By October 2025, Huang had said NVIDIA's share of China's advanced AI chip market had fallen from 95% to zero.

The firm therefore questioned what additional influence Alice Huang could have exerted on a position Jensen Huang had already consistently advocated.

NVIDIA’s Dicey Handling of the Megaspeed Investigation

While his relationship with Alice Huang may be probed for weeks to come, the bigger story may be how it influenced NVIDIA’s dealings with Megaspeed, the Singapore-based data centre company at the centre of the controversy.

Alice Huang had served as Megaspeed's managing director for eight months, until October 2023. Reuters reviewed more than 30 records and found she became Megaspeed’s controlling shareholder in March 2023, and the company was listed by NVIDIA as an official cloud partner.

She was photographed alongside Jensen Huang at an industry after-party in Taipei in June 2024, and again at a private dinner during Computex in May 2025.

By late 2024, the US Commerce Department had opened an investigation into Megaspeed over suspicions that it was diverting NVIDIA's advanced AI chips to China in violation of American export controls.

While Washington bars NVIDIA from selling its most advanced GPUs directly to Chinese customers, the company can legally sell them to customers in other markets, including Malaysia and Singapore, subject to US export-control rules. Chinese companies could access them remotely through data centres hosted in Southeast Asia

Megaspeed had been importing billions of dollars' worth of NVIDIA equipment into Malaysia and developing data centres across Southeast Asia for Chinese customers, including Alibaba.

However, the investigation took an unexpected turn in August 2025.

According to The New York Times, NVIDIA's general counsel Tim Teter emailed investigators at the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, seeking information about the Megaspeed probe. Teter reportedly said that Jeff Kessler, a senior Commerce Department official, had authorised him to contact the investigators.

When investigators declined a meeting, Teter questioned the decision, referring again to Kessler's approval. The case was subsequently transferred to the Justice Department, which asked the Commerce Department to pause its investigation. Some investigators reportedly viewed NVIDIA's intervention as potentially compromising the inquiry.

The developments also raise questions about what Washington knew and when.

In spring 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly oversaw the preparation of a classified intelligence memo detailing Jensen Huang's relationship with Alice Huang and the suspicions surrounding her.

According to The New York Times and subsequent Axios reporting, Rubio also warned Trump about the matter before the president's May 2026 trip to China, shortly before Huang joined the presidential delegation.

What Happens Next for NVIDIA?

Markets can do little more than speculate about the possible outcomes until the investigations produce conclusive findings.

NVIDIA’s shares fell approximately 9.5% over two trading sessions. Huang owns approximately 3.3% of the company.

But the company's products remain central to the AI infrastructure buildout, and its near-term business is underpinned by existing customer commitments and an established product roadmap.

NVIDIA's guidance for the third quarter of FY27 stands at $108 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2%, and already excludes any data centre compute revenue from China.

“Institutional investors don't price the affair or the apology,” Moorhead says. “A key-person risk is now something they have to price until the board's review closes.”

Moorhead also believes the company can minimise this risk by elevating its senior leadership team and laying out a succession plan.

The uncertainty, however, could persist if the investigation establishes that sensitive information was transferred or uncovers more than what the board was told.

Regardless of the outcome of the investigations, Huang's position as a presidential technology adviser and his ability to shape the country's AI agenda could come under strain.

Precedents for an exact situation are few. However, in August 2025, Trump called for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan's immediate resignation over concerns about his investments in Chinese companies. “Fifteen days later, the government took a 9.9% stake in Intel, with Lip-Bu Tan still in the job,” Moorhead says.

However, one entity seems to stand to gain regardless of the probe’s outcomes—China.

“If US officials are right about Alice Huang and Jensen didn’t know, Beijing wins either way: it got something, or it tied up America’s most important AI CEO,” Moorhead says.