499 pointsby karimf 7 hours ago542 comments

https://www.axios.com/2026/11/08/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-aff... , https://archive.ph/Hxn5h https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/06/us/politics/chinese-spy-a... , https://archive.ph/atMcp https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/08/business/nvidia-investigation...

Discussion

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holdingunsteady · 7 hours ago
Full text: Subject: A message to our company Body: "I owe my family and all of you an apology. I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry. Throughout my life, my family has given me love and support. They deserve my honesty and loyalty. Instead, I let them down and damaged the life we built together. I take full responsibility for what I did and the hurt I caused, and I accept the criticism that comes with it. To my wife and family: I love you. I know an apology cannot undo what I have done. I hope our family will heal and that, over time, I can earn back your trust. To my colleagues at NVIDIA, including those I have worked alongside for decades, and to our board, partners, and shareholders around the world: you deserve better from me. Leading NVIDIA is the privilege of my life. My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility. I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence. Regarding the national security concerns raised in news reports, NVIDIA's Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company, and I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America's national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American. My family bears no responsibility for my choices. I do. Please give them privacy."
janalsncm · 7 hours ago
https://archive.is/Hxn5h
readthenotes1 · 7 hours ago
I don't know if this is Jensen himself or his advisors, but if you're going to make an apology, this is the way to do it. There was, no deflection "this is not who I am", No blaming the spy. He owned up to his mistakes
- adriand · 7 hours ago
  For sure he has excellent PR and comms advisors. He gets credit, I guess, for taking their advice, but none for betraying his wife and family. It speaks volumes that so much of the leadership class in American tech and business is so morally compromised.
  - reverend_gonzo · 7 hours ago
    For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure many, if not most, humans in their position could be compromised in this way. It is one person, and your enemies have all the resources at your disposal. It is very easy to say, “I would never do X” but when you literally have a nation trying to get you do X, I presume it’s a lot harder.
    - Noaidi · 7 hours ago
      This is why I am content with being a nobody.
    - asadotzler · 2 hours ago
      All you have to do to moot 100% of that massive adversarial effort is to decide (ahead of time) to not be a POS and keep your dick behind your zipper. Not deciding that and sticking to it makes you a garbage husband and a dangerous and unreliable CEO.
- yodon · 7 hours ago
  Crisis communications is a real field. Most companies aren't prepared for it in advance and do it poorly as a result, but there are specialist consultants who are good at getting it right (source: close friend who did this kind of work for many years - it is not a pretty business, and often involves significant human failings). I don't mean to belittle the letter, but Jensen's PR firm undoubtedly helped with the letter and undoubtedly had advisors who specialize in this.
  - shermantanktop · 7 hours ago
    Or, you know, you could be a stand up person and be genuinely contrite. He's a big time CEO and his company is impacted by how well he handles it. So of course there are PR/crisis people around. They specialize in making psychopaths look human. But leaders are where they are because they make good decisions - their character does matter. Calling in the image-fixer types to clean up your mistakes is easy mode.
    - TheOtherHobbes · 7 hours ago
      Being seduced by a foreign agent was neither a good decision, nor evidence of good character, nor proof of situational awareness. Can we assume this was a one-off because she was uniquely persistent and persuasive?
      - shermantanktop · 2 hours ago
        Yes, total failure on many counts. But when called to answer for it, you can respond like a flawed human or you can have a pr crisis firm present you as a bland corporate robot who says things like “if anyone was offended I apologize” or “we’re going to investigate how this happened.” I think his answer was solid and seemed genuine. Doesn’t mean I think he’s got good judgment generally, but at least this was not a shitty thing to say.
  - TheOtherHobbes · 7 hours ago
    Indeed. Anyone who believes he personally agonised over this alone in a darkened room is being rather naive.
  - charlieyu1 · 6 hours ago
    Owning a mistake is especially hard in the East Asian culture. It’s been a long time I have seen a public figure admitting his wrongdoings.
- benzible · 7 hours ago
  As apologies go it’s skillfully done. But it’s almost entirely about his personal failings (the affair), and it leaves plenty of room for a slow-walked board investigation that will end with a report designed to look thorough while concluding nothing. Even if he didn’t know she was an intelligence asset, it’s hard to believe he didn’t at least suspect Megaspeed was a conduit to China. If you read the press reports, there were a ton of red flags. Nvidia has also said he’ll stay on as CEO while the investigation runs. I can’t think of many CEOs who would survive this, let alone without taking any time off.
- greenchair · 7 hours ago
  Its all calculated down to the pretend patriot lines near the end even though he's constantly looking for ways to bypass export restrictions to sell to china.
Noaidi · 7 hours ago
$NVDA down 2% pre-trading.
- 8note · 7 hours ago
  sounds like an easy buy, if it wasnt already way expensive. i guess we'll actually find out if he gave away useful nvidia secrets in years from now, but by then the tech might not matter all that much to Nvidia. he was cheating on his wife before now, and Nvidia was doing just fine
  - madaxe_again · 7 hours ago
    A forward PE of 11 ain't expensive. It's the cheapest it has been in a decade.
- jjtheblunt · 7 hours ago
  how does that work, a movement pre-trading, since trading sets the price? is it pre consumer level trading, with institutional trading happening on different time windows?
  - Noaidi · 7 hours ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended-hours_trading
- tcdent · 7 hours ago
  Tell me you don't know how the stock market works without telling me you don't know how the stock market works.
  - Noaidi · 7 hours ago
    I have a BA in Economics.
goodcake3963 · 7 hours ago
With all the money he has, he fell to this
- MiroslavPokorny · 7 hours ago
  Do i really need to remind you of all the orange team ?
  - b--l · 6 hours ago
    you need to remind me. What is the "orange team"?
    - yoyohello13 · 2 minutes ago
      Maybe everyone in the Epstein files.
- 93po · 3 hours ago
  The owner of the 49ers, a billionaire, was recently arrested for trying to have sex with someone off craigslist in a trailer park.
  - kridsdale1 · 1 hour ago
    What, that’s a crime now?
DeepLogin · 7 hours ago
Actual article: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/a-message-to-our-company
- intunderflow · 7 hours ago
  Given the news article is paywalled can mods please replace the URL with this one ^
  - vhiremath4 · 7 hours ago
    There is another thread dedicated to the nvidia newsroom disclosure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50416801
    - DeepLogin · 7 hours ago
      That's not the same link.
      - vhiremath4 · 6 hours ago
        Welp can’t remove it now that there’s a reply. My bad you are correct.
  - rc1 · 7 hours ago
    The official Nvida article only mentions national security concerns and does not bluntly say, as this one does, in its opening: > admitted to having a romantic relationship with a suspected Chinese spy
    - markdown · 6 hours ago
      So it definitely should be changed. The Nvidia one is factual, while the other one is tabloid speculation. He admitted to having a relationship with a woman. There's a separate question of whether the woman was a spy.
      - avazhi · 6 hours ago
        > There's a separate question of whether the woman was a spy. I mean, it's pretty clear it was a spy. Have a look at WSJ, NYT, etc. It isn't tabloidish to say so.
      - rc1 · 6 hours ago
        People reading the nvida article will be wondering what is suspected. Probably why this article is trending as well as the original. Whether tabloid, or completely inaccurate, Nvida make reference to it and that there is an independent investigation. It is reasonable for people to wonder what it is about.
  - creatonez · 7 hours ago
    Strongly disagree with changing it to that URL. This the kinda news you don't want to get from an involved primary source... that page is missing a crucial detail (the national security concern mentioned is espionage ) and could just disappear whenever it becomes convenient to get the news cycle on the next thing. It will almost certainly be a 404 Not Found by the time 3 years have passed.
    - DeepLogin · 6 hours ago
      Then there could be a second archive link. I mean they are literally the same article in essence. One is from the official source and the other is paywalled with nothing worthy added. The choice is clear.
  - mmooss · 7 hours ago
    I disagree. Giving NVIDIA / Huang the stage and a microphone is begging for disinformation. Legitimate reporters can provide context, important information omitted by NVIDIA/Huang, and fact-checking.
kittikitti · 7 hours ago
This is a humiliating incident for everyone in AI.
- mbgerring · 7 hours ago
  Most of the Bay Area AI cult is one giant polycule, no one cares about Jensen Huang cheating on his wife. The US National Security blob certainly cares, but not because of the infidelity.
  - mbgerring · 7 hours ago
    I guess that’s one good thing about the whole “sex cult” thing, that everyone in it is more or less immune to sexual blackmail. The trade-off being susceptibility to in-group sexual manipulation. Not sure if that’s better or worse tbh.
    - yeeetz · 7 hours ago
      it's actually rather comforting and egalitarian to think that everyone in the world is basically susceptible to sex
      - solyin · 6 hours ago
        There will be sex bots in the future. Does that make things worse or better? If you have sex with a robot, does it count as cheating?
        yeeetz · 5 hours ago
        robots for now will lack the status danger and thrill of a human partner - it's not typically about the physicality of a relationship, but actually power differentials, status, movement
    - BLKNSLVR · 6 hours ago
      Chinese priority: infiltrate the polycule!
  - shermantanktop · 7 hours ago
    "Giant Polycule" would be a great band name.
dnw · 7 hours ago
At the end of the day we are all human.
- theandrewbailey · 7 hours ago
  All he had to do was wear leather jackets and sell enough GPUs to cause a global economic crash*, but he wanted just a little more. *Crash in progress.
- jryan49 · 7 hours ago
  Lol some of us are more "human" than others I guess.
- hackernud3s · 6 hours ago
  At the beginning of the day too.
calvinmorrison · 7 hours ago
If you're the CIA, wouldn't you want to plant employees, or 'hire' employees at major firms like this? I guess I assume they do already. Probably each major corporation has 10-50+ employees getting kick backs from the government.
- jackweirdy · 7 hours ago
  They do, according to Jonna Mendez, but those placed don’t collect a company salary, only a government salary. This causes some contention since they are paid far less than salaried employees and get no equity, so it leads to high turnover
  - JoshTriplett · 6 hours ago
    > but those placed don’t collect a company salary, only a government salary Technically, they collect the company salary, and then the CIA reduces their pay by the same amount. (They have to be indistinguishable from ordinary employee, including to payroll.) At one point, they couldn't keep any excess if the company pay was higher. Now, they're apparently allowed to keep an amount that doesn't significantly exceed comparable federal pay.
  - dcrazy · 1 hour ago
    From the context, I believe the question was about infiltrating _American_ companies. If Mendez has made that claim, do you happen to know where she said it?
- derektank · 6 hours ago
  The US intelligence agencies would have a hard time planting employees in US firms while remaining within the bounds of FISA. They certainly have assets inside major Chinese firms though, of course.
  - calvinmorrison · 6 hours ago
    I sincerely doubt anyone gives a shit about whatever "FISA" is, sounds like a credit card company or a shoe brand tbh.
    - nozzlegear · 1 hour ago
      Why do you doubt that? And who do you suppose wants to work for the CIA in this aspect, when the job description is pushing pencils as an intern at a tech company trying to get sad old men to have sex with them?
    - dcrazy · 1 hour ago
      I can’t tell if this is excellent sarcasm or complete ignorance.
danpalmer · 7 hours ago
How integral is Huang to the success of Nvidia? As much as he seems to have done a good job, he appears less integral than with some companies like Bezos/Amazon or Zuckerberg/Meta (whether these are/were or not is besides the point, they are seen as such). I'd expect a board to fire a CEO over this, so he will have to be critical to the business, more than a normal CEO is critical, to survive. The market reaction to him going would also be interesting. Seems like the markets are starting to figure out what the value is here.
- dingaling911 · 7 hours ago
  I think his fear of failing is the reason for their success.
- teknologist · 7 hours ago
  How integral is Nvidia to the success of LLMs? Seems like a few companies could step in and put that TSMC capacity to good use...
  - Tadpole9181 · 6 hours ago
    I'm sorry, who exactly? NVIDIA essentially has no real competition because of how wildly successful they are.
    - danpalmer · 6 hours ago
      Google, Microsoft, Amazon, AMD, Apple, Huawei... These aren't all entirely drop-in replacements, there are some trade-offs involved, but there are many companies with alternatives that could take Nvidia's market if they stall.
      - andsoitis · 6 hours ago
        > Google, Microsoft, Amazon, AMD, Apple, Huawei... Which of those sell chips at the Nvidia caliber sell to AI model builders in the US (not use internally)?
        IncreasePosts · 4 hours ago
        Google
- jsw97 · 7 hours ago
  Navigating this political/diplomatic climate is key to Nvidia's success, and he appears to be driving that? In normal times maybe it would be different.
- mjr00 · 7 hours ago
  Not to sound too negative but IMO NVidia has largely been "right place, right time" and I don't think Huang has had much to do with it. NVidia made computer graphics cards and CUDA long ago; they just happened to be in the right place, twice, in quick succession: first crypto/blockchain, then AI, neither of which they really had any part in boosting. It's like they set up a general store that sells pickaxes and drills, then someone found gold in the mountain right next to them, and then the goldmine ran out but someone found oil right under them. The one big thing I will given Huang credit for is not going all-in on blockchain and recognizing it as a bubble. NVidia never really pivoted from their core business/customers to support crypto miners, unlike what they're doing with AI.
  - javier2 · 7 hours ago
    Yeah, they had been working on CUDA for a very long time before AI turned out to be interesting again.
  - est31 · 7 hours ago
    > first crypto/blockchain, then AI, neither of which they really had any part in boosting. Nvidia boosts AI a lot. They are the central bank of AI. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673098
    - mjr00 · 7 hours ago
      Maybe the verb tense was unclear. NVidia currently boosts AI, for obvious reasons. But OpenAI was the company who did all of the legwork to make AI into an industry, with some minor support from NVidia. NVidia wouldn't have 10x'd since 2022 without OpenAI.
      - est31 · 6 hours ago
        AI has been a (minor but existing) industry before OpenAI. E.g. Deepmind exists since 2010, 6 years before OpenAIs founding. Sure, OpenAI has contributed to it, in great deals, but Nvidia has always been there during the growth of AI. In 2012, AlexNet has been trained on GTX 580 GPUs, in 2016 AlphaGo used Nvidia GPUs, etc.
  - altmanaltman · 7 hours ago
    Yeah, but in this case they also built the pickaxes and drills and did it better than any other pickaxe and drill builder. In your analogy, they are commodities and a shop like that can be set up by anyone. But in this case, that doesn't apply. And if you look at their sales composition, they never pivoted away from gaming, but data centers clearly became ludicrously more attractive in the AI era. But they were always very good at computing triangles, perhaps the best in the world. They were lucky that market forces made that computation very valuable but they were not lucky in their ability to build it.
    - mjr00 · 6 hours ago
      I do agree! They execute extremely well and Huang deserves praise for that. I just don't see him as a visionary leader shaping the industry in the same way that e.g. Jobs was. In an alternate world where the NSA doesn't create bitcoin and OpenAI is never founded, NVidia would be a stable, reliable producer of consumer electronic parts.
      - altmanaltman · 4 hours ago
        how can you be sure though we wont find a good use of computing triangles in that alternative universe? that technology would always have abstract value, how it is impmemented will depend on market forces but you have to admit, they know how to go with the flow, maybe to an extent where it seems like they just keep getting lucky
  - SXX · 7 hours ago
    To be honest other hardware companies had years to catch up to Cuda and ML, but they invested shit into their software stacks. Even when AI boom was imminient but 10 times smaller 2-3 years ago they did not invested heavily enough and Nvidia went all in. I have no clue what percent of that decision making was Huang, but all the competition leadership was certainly incompetent. So at least he did built company with a good leadership. Its a fact. Even if I personally dont like Nvidia or its products.
  - xiaoyu2006 · 7 hours ago
    The had the insight to develop and promote CUDA long before DL was a thing. IIRC AlexNet was when CUDA really paid off.
  - hcta · 7 hours ago
    > they just happened to be in the right place, twice, in quick succession that is generally what it looks like when someone is smarter than you
    - mjr00 · 6 hours ago
      > that is generally what it looks like when someone is smarter than you Maybe. This is also what everyone said about Elon for a long time, though.
      - CamperBob2 · 6 hours ago
        It's not that Musk is not smart, he's just erratic, and growing increasingly so. He is the Howard Hughes of our day. They will find his body in an expensive hotel room at some point, surrounded by bottles of his own urine.
  - solyin · 6 hours ago
    There were a lot of computer graphics cards manufacturers back in the 90's. Nvidia survived amongst the whole pack of them. 3dfx, Matrox, S3, ATI, Cirrus. How much of that is soley due to Jenson vs outside factors outside of his control, only he really knows, but I think her deserves a bit more credit than right place right time. CUDA was a very expensive investment with zero guarantee of payoff. The market could have gone an entirely different way and Nvidia would have failed.
    - mjr00 · 6 hours ago
      That's fair. NVidia's execution has been rock solid for as long as they've been around and Huang deserves credit for that. But I would say most of the reason they've 100x'd since 2017 has been external forces.
- iambateman · 7 hours ago
  We’re going to find out tomorrow and I suspect in this case the answer starts with a B.
- andsoitis · 7 hours ago
  > How integral is Huang to the success of Nvidia? He's the visionary behind what they do and the person who influences industries around him to make it real.
  - IncreasePosts · 6 hours ago
    What percent of nvidias success was due to vision, vs luck? I made a boat load of money off of the Tesla IPO(and then holding for 12 years) but I only invested because I thought they wouldn't be a successful car company but would produce a bunch of patents that would be valuable when licensed to the big auto makers. Obviously I got that wrong, but my investment still worked out - and I still have friends and family coming to me for investing advice because I made the right move but for the wrong reasons
    - mrheosuper · 3 hours ago
      If it happens 1 time, you can call it luck. But CUDA, Ray tracing acceleration, DLSS? It's not luck anymore.
    - musha68k · 2 hours ago
      Although I'm still more of a "Voodoo person" myself, the "Riva128 guy" has shown bold vision and relentlessly fierce execution on top of it - consistently - since the early 90s ..
- plaidfuji · 6 hours ago
  My understanding is that he has something like 50 direct reports. Which would make him a pretty major single point of failure.
- hoppp · 6 hours ago
  I'm skeptical that he gets fired for this. The "Spy I loved" James bond style twist combined with his iconic leather jacket might actually come off as badass.
- bluegatty · 6 hours ago
  "I'd expect a board to fire a CEO over this, " God god, no. There's very little he could ever accidentally tell someone that would matter that much. Other than handing over very detailed schemas etc, there's almost nothing important he could tell them. Maybe some future ideas and plans, maybe some government things about the Administration, it's small peanuts. Nvidia is an operational success, their IP is embedded within deep layers of know how and expertise. He's the 'father' of that org, he set the tone, they like him there. Nvidia would risk being an Intel without him.
  - danpalmer · 6 hours ago
    A spy like this isn't looking for chip schematics, they're looking for strategy. Strategy that comes from the CEO. Ultimately the main thing a CEO brings is judgement, and this was extremely poor judgement.
    - bluegatty · 6 hours ago
      Strategy changes all the time. It will change overnight with the election results. What matters most is the information underlying that strategy, like, if ASML was coming out with some very specific new thing that would tilt the industry - that would be key.
    - denkmoon · 6 hours ago
      Not knowing someone is a spy is extremely poor judgement? Telling his mistress all kinds of corporate secrets would be "extremely poor judgement" but at this point I see no evidence that this happened?
    - tyre · 7 minutes ago
      I don't care that he had an affair (none of my business; who knows the terms of his relationship with his wife; Americans / humans are far too moralizing in controlling sex) and, even if it was wrong in the context of his marriage, I don't think someone should be fired for that. If he knew / suspected she was a spy, yes, absolutely. If she was given access to confidential information, yes, absolutely. If he thought it was a romantic relationship, fine, that doesn't affect me / NVDA / America. Obviously he should stop now that he knows! But if he didn't at the time, you know, I think I can still trust him to make computer chips.
  - moregrist · 6 hours ago
    > God god, no. > There's very little he could ever accidentally tell someone that would matter that much. I think the practical implications matter a lot less than the PR and legal ones. If the stock price plummets tomorrow and doesn’t recover, the board may have to act. Similarly, if the right governments start asking hard questions, the board may have to act. This is likely going to be a slow-rolling shit show for a while. At the very least, it’s legitimate grounds for one or more congressional investigations, which may start here but could go anywhere.
    - fuzzythinker · 5 hours ago
      If the stock price plummets tomorrow and doesn’t recover, it is likely ppl are afraid he'll be replaced. If the board "act" by replacing him, the price is likely to dive more, not recover
    - bluegatty · 4 hours ago
      Elon Musk makes nazi salutes and says radically unhinged things, and does many things which are arguably illegal. Most investors don't care. Unless there was some 'materially detrimental disclosure' this is just tabloid. The fact that Elon has a literal harem, Tesla has $500M loan from Chinese banks with all sorts of conditions etc. Elon literally does Zoom calls with Vladimir freaking Putin. I think this is a nothing burger.
  - skippyboxedhero · 6 hours ago
    He denied, implausibly, all knowledge about Supermicro. I don't think that is going to work this time. The crime here isn't giving secrets to the Chinese, it is helping them evade export controls. Again, this is something that Nvidia and Jensen has been investigated on repeatedly. If he knew that Megaspeed was a front for China, quite hard to deny given that Alice Huang seems to have brought Chinese execs to every meeting with Jensen then it is very bad. And yes, the stuff that Jensen would have said would have been very useful because, I assume, the inference is that he would have been helping them evade sanctions. The very best case from here is that the board fires him.
    - bluegatty · 5 hours ago
      "The crime here isn't giving secrets to the Chinese, it is helping them evade export controls. " If that were true, then it's fair game, but I don't think that's what is going on. US gov has not stated they are targeting him. Also, there is a gigantic difference between 'avoidance' and 'evasion', like with taxes. We'll see.
      - mandeepj · 4 hours ago
        > "US gov has not stated they are targeting him." Do we know that yet for sure? There's a closed-door US congressional hearing scheduled for nov/18
        bluegatty · 2 hours ago
        We know what they have said, and they are not targeting him, they are targeting the spy. I think it's very unfair to suggest they are targeting him, when there isn't even mention if it. He's obviously entangled in this so he'll at least be the subject but beyond that it's not fair to say. It would have to be 'very, very serious' for the US Gov under a super pro-AI/pro-business agenda to take down their #1 CEO over something indirect. Musk has direct meetings with Putin for gosh sakes.
        mandeepj · 1 hour ago
        > Musk has direct meetings with Putin for gosh sakes. You mean over the phone?
        bluegatty · 1 hour ago
        Direct interaction, not in-person. And many more interaction with high level Russian and Chinese state actors. Huge investment from Chinese state banks and critical contracts for data collection.
        mandeepj · 19 minutes ago
        > Huge investment from Chinese state banks and critical contracts for data collection. He admitted having talks with Putin during 2023/2024. His Tesla China can help him circumvent any investigation or questioning from US authorities
- agnosticmantis · 6 hours ago
  I hope he at least gets a nice severance package in that scenario. Tough job market in tech right now.
- Conscat · 6 hours ago
  As an Nvidian, I strongly disagree. I'm sure somehow the company would be fine in the long run without him, but until today I believed that his vastly superior judgement to his peers is to credit for Nvidia's success. Not to minca words, I think he is a far more qualified and intelligent CEO than pretty much anyone in big tech. There's a reason Nvidia doesn't have to lay people off ever.
  - InsidiousWombat · 5 hours ago
    I think that says more about other CEOs than of his brilliance.
  - atq2119 · 31 minutes ago
    I don't think the second half what you're saying is true. He has had a good hand, yes, but I think what we're seeing is "simply" the effect of a successful company being run by one of its founders. There is always a kind of reversion to mean once a successful company moves away from founder control, and that hasn't happened for Nvidia.
- ksec · 5 hours ago
  I have seen and read this a lot over the years and I am starting to wonder may be it isn't Pat Gelsinger that called Nvidia lucky but people actually felt it that way naturally. For over a decade CUDA was nothing but a money and silicon wasting function that brought in very little extra revenue for the amount of company resources it uses. And arguably it started even before CUDA with Cg. And I will say another unpopular thing, they are in hardware business, apart from the past 1 - 2 years which they are enjoying massive success, for most of the past 30 years hardware business are 10x tougher than Software side. Most CEO would have given up. Paul Graham invented the term to describe it, Founder Mode. And for another note about comments elsewhere in the thread that Open AI is what brought up the current AI craze. Nvidia was already selling to OpenAI via introduction of Elon Musk in 2016 . I seriously doubt Nvidia would have been anywhere close to what they are today without Jensen's Leadership.
- stickfigure · 4 hours ago
  What's this puritanical streak? Men in power have been having affairs from time immemorial. It's not great but it's also not original. The guy works for a corporation, not a church. Yawn.
- musha68k · 2 hours ago
  He's a vulnerable founder just like Steve Jobs was and he's also the closest to Jobs in terms of brilliance and impact in the current playing field. He's been consistently showing up and proving himself over decades to be core to Nvidia's success - core as in leadership. I would look to sell my Nvidia shares without knowing him being at the helm.
- ergocoder · 1 hour ago
  At the current state, maybe not much. He was integral to the journey, of course. The bigger threat is Jensen selling all his stocks at peak (if he was fired). Then, this dude with $100B in the bank could've easily started an NVIIA competitor. He has every component needed for a success. This is why NVIDIA's board would never let this guy go.
- cowlevel · 12 minutes ago
  We can look across the aisle to AMD to see how much difference the CEO makes.
carlos-menezes · 7 hours ago
> To my wife and family: I love you. No, you do not.
- tetrisgm · 7 hours ago
  It’s possible to love someone and make mistakes
- iLemming · 7 hours ago
  That's unfair. Most people are helpless against trained mind-tricksters; anyone could fall into that trap. Don't tell me you have never wondered how soldiers returning from war stop having panic attacks and soiling their clothes after seeing a qualified shrink, who does nothing more than talk. Words alone can heal, convince and mislead you. We have no idea what that woman used to lure him. He's not some random guy from Ohio who cheats with a stripper, he's a high-value target. We're talking about Hitman 3 (videogame) level espionage here.
  - petit_robert · 6 hours ago
    >We have no idea what that woman used to lure him. Looking at her picture might provide a hint.
axegon_ · 7 hours ago
At this point, we can safely start treating South Park as a documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V2HxWrlqqE
- Betelbuddy · 7 hours ago
  So true: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/04/16/musks-legio...
Yajirobe · 7 hours ago
first Ethan Klein, now Jensen Huang...
- shoobiedoo · 7 hours ago
  The Ethan one is especially shocking because his whole shtick is being the "better man" compared to all the people he reacts to and sues. Throwing it all away just to doink a coworker is pretty out there
  - wmf · 7 hours ago
    People who brag about their ethics are compensating.
flowerlad · 7 hours ago
Now we have to re-evaluate all his statements in favor of selling to China. For example, we want China to build on "our stack". On the face of it, that seems correct. If China has multiple stacks to pick from why wouldn't we want them to pick our stack? But do they have such a choice?
- tsunamifury · 7 hours ago
  He has been openly advocating to selling to China.
  - markdown · 6 hours ago
    As have most. Some, like Tesla and Apple, even have factories there!!!
    - est31 · 6 hours ago
      Apple has connections so great that United even introduced a whole airport leg SFO-PVG just for them (unless it's an urban legend).
      - anonymous908213 · 4 hours ago
        I was curious, so I researched it (aka prompted ChatGPT). SFO-PVG was established in 2000, long before Apple offshored all of their manufacturing to China. An article from the time describes it being something that was in demand among Silicon Valley in general[1] rather than Apple particularly. In 2019, United revealed that Apple does spend $35 million/yr on that single route, averaging 50 seats/day[2], so I suppose that's the source of the legend. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/shanghai-to-s-f-flig... [2] https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/11/apple-united-airline-pu...
      - ppsreejith · 1 hour ago
        I think this was SF to Chengdu. From: https://www.reddit.com/r/whoathatsinteresting/comments/1tspz... From the book: Apple in China
- flowerlad · 6 hours ago
  Another is the pretense of overcoming Chinese resistance. China sent a cute spy to bang the CEO of Nvidia, but they simultaneously set a "strict limit" on import of Nvidia chips. How does that make sense? It makes sense if the purpose of the "strict limit" is so that any sale of H200 to China can be seen as overcoming Chinese restrictions. Anything that is against the Chinese government's resistance must be good for the US, right?
  - nemomarx · 6 hours ago
    It could be that they wanted design information and other details from him, and were going to use those to build up domestic manufacturing alongside import restrictions. It's hard to say from the outside what the goals would be - pushing him in certain directions, extracting intel, etc.
    - flowerlad · 6 hours ago
      > It could be that they wanted design information and other details from him For this it would be much easier if the Chinese spies banged Nvidia engineers.
      - interlocutor · 6 hours ago
        We don't know that this is not happening.
        stickfigure · 4 hours ago
        They should list it in the compensation section for job reqs.
      - tyre · 14 minutes ago
        More likely that she was given devices to plant / message him zero day PDFs or whatever.
augment_me · 7 hours ago
Apart from his direct family, who cares? Why is this an issue? It's 2026, we literally had a human child trafficking ring with multiple presidents involved and it didnt lead to anything or move the needle on stuff.
- DragonStrength · 7 hours ago
  Integrity matters for maintaining corporate secrets. Someone who is having an extramarital affair is a target for blackmail. Most of getting a security clearance is not lying.
- stingraycharles · 7 hours ago
  It’s an issue because for some reason the US intelligence agency decided to go public with this and then the newspapers started running with it. This letter is just part of the ceremony of events that is expected to happen afterwards.
  - dannyw · 7 hours ago
    Probably more like the administration, given how they were briefed more than a year ago. There’s been recent power spats (JD Vance’s tweet, Susie being replaced by Steve Bannon, and probably more infighting). As much as I want to believe there’s greater 4D chess and motivation, I assign a modest probability to someone going “fuck it”, opening a massive short on NVDA, and then leaking it just for the love of insider trading. Rather than anything strategic or real.
  - jryle70 · 6 hours ago
    Huh? CEO's private life has always always been a big deal. These were just a few cases the last few years alone: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/coldplay-kiss-c... Jensen Huang's case is even more high profile because of the spying accusation.
    - stingraycharles · 3 hours ago
      You misunderstood what I meant, obviously the newspapers all cover these things when they become public. The difference is that this time, it’s an intelligence agency that went public with it (or someone leaked it from there), the spying angle is quite unique.
- Noaidi · 7 hours ago
  > Why is this an issue? She was also a Chinese spy. > It's 2026, we literally had a human child trafficking ring with multiple presidents involved and it didnt lead to anything or move the needle on stuff. He admitted to the affair. No one has admitted to being a pedo. Much less forgivable.
- anon7725 · 7 hours ago
  The leader of the central company in the AI boom was compromised by a spy from the US’s biggest adversary while US and Chinese companies are in an AI arms race. Would that count?
  - fastily · 7 hours ago
    We have a sitting president who freely shares state secrets with dictators upon request. This seems rather high effort when they could’ve just asked nicely no? </s>
    - dolebirchwood · 7 hours ago
      Is whataboutism really necessary?
      - fastily · 7 hours ago
        the </s> is for sarcasm..
      - fc417fc802 · 7 hours ago
        It isn't whataboutism if it's directly relevant to the point at hand (as opposed to attempting to distract from it). The question posed effectively amounted to "why is this particularly noteworthy compared to everything else of a vaguely similar nature that's been going on".
    - dinkumthinkum · 6 hours ago
      I know you are trying to make some point for your political team but if you look up what a fiduciary is then you will see why this would be a good thing and a way to avoid other legal issues. But I know, OMB and all that!
    - DragonStrength · 6 hours ago
      That president's board (US voters) just put him on a much shorter leash as a result. Actions, consequences, etc.
- techblueberry · 7 hours ago
  Why does it matter that one of the key leaders of our aI strategy was having an affair with a Chinese spy while advising the president on our policy of selling chips to China?
- fwlr · 7 hours ago
  The investors probably care. If you’ll lie to your wife to get laid, you might also lie to your investors to get paid.
- bluegatty · 6 hours ago
  It's an issue, but vastly over stated in the press.
- reenorap · 6 hours ago
  I'm a shareholder, and the fact that both the US government and Nvidia itself is going to investigate him is very, very bad. So yes, I care about it a lot because I'm probably going to lose a lot of money tomorrow!
  - BLKNSLVR · 6 hours ago
    This US Government investigating Jensen Huang will be an exercise in cotton balls and kid gloves. Trump himself relaxed laws on chip exports to China. P.S. If you have any other liquidity available, maybe 'buy the dip'?
method_capital · 7 hours ago
I'm not sure what actual letters like this are supposed to achieve (besides protecting his ass I mean). Are employees supposed to stand beside their fallen leader, are they supposed to go about their business differently? Anybody having affairs with subordinates can't be trusted to make good judgement calls with respect to internal leadership / delegation, at least it wouldn't seem so to me.
- kraken_cult · 7 hours ago
  It's better than not having a statement and have rumours flying everywhere.
  - method_capital · 7 hours ago
    Well the only reason we have the letter is because rumors were flying everywhere and an investigation has been initiated.
  - dieselgate · 7 hours ago
    Agreed. It's due diligence and saving face; at least he owns it?
- twodave · 6 hours ago
  It sounds like your problem lies more in his mistake, not in coming clean about it. Him being the one to do that takes any influence the woman had over him away.
plant-ian · 7 hours ago
I feel like every thing requires a tin foil hat now. Is this some last ditch ploy to stimulate noncompetitive regulation from the US government? I find it more difficult to trust anything these people say everyday.
- plant-ian · 7 hours ago
  Just to be clear, this was probably already happening, but I can imagine the board being like "hmmmmm..... opportunity?" Then we see titles with "Chinese spy" plastered onto every major news network. Seems a little convenient to me.
iambateman · 7 hours ago
I heard a guy I respect say “there’s a short list of things people will ruin their lives for.” I’m not sure if this will ruin Jensen’s life or not, but it’s a good opportunity for us all to remember that the short-term high is usually not worth it.
- voidfunc · 7 hours ago
  There is zero percent chance the board does anything to Jensen. His likely ex-wife is about to be very rich tho.
  - dannyw · 7 hours ago
    We don’t know the extent of what happened. My first thought, given MegaSpeed, is chip diversion. How much of NVIDIA’s sales and revenues is actually to China? Would that be allowed to happen still?
  - caminante · 7 hours ago
    I'll take the other side of the wife -> ex-wife bet. He was photographed publicly with the "spy" and has been signing boobs. If the camel had a back, then it was already broken, IMHO.
    - lotsofpulp · 6 hours ago
      He wasn’t photographed in a romantic context as far as I know, and he just signed the upper part of a woman’s chest with tons of cameras around, clearly a marketing ploy rather than him trying to enter into a relationship with her.
      - caminante · 5 hours ago
        >afaik What? [0] You just touch someone's lower back, throw an arm around their neck, and share seats for one at lounges with platonic friends? [0] https://www.thetimes.com/world/asia/article/jensen-huang-rom...
        mlmonkey · 1 hour ago
        Paywalled.
    - ungovernableCat · 5 hours ago
      There’s cheating on your wife. And there’s cheating on your wife and having the feds write up intelligence reports about it, the Financial Times running an article about it and having to send a public admission to every single employee at your company including your two kids who you employ there.
      - caminante · 4 hours ago
        Did you ask yourself how his wife would not know this was happening? They were seen in public in intimate settings. Don't kid yourself about the reason he wrote the letter. He's only writing this because of national security optics and buries it in a shit sandwich format.
  - nozzlegear · 2 hours ago
    > His likely ex-wife is about to be very rich tho. She was already rich
  - ergocoder · 1 hour ago
    They are both rich, lmao. The wealth is marital. But I agree with you that both of them or one of them will be very rich because they will get to sell at the top without upsetting the market. OH NO WE HAVE TO SELL BECAUSE OF THE DIVORCE NOW. BEFORE THE DEMOCRATS NUKE AI COMPANIES. OH NO. [insert croc tears here] You can google Luo Pai (from Enron) to learn more.
  - mmmBacon · 57 minutes ago
    I honestly feel truly sorry for her. No amount of wealth can replace what she’s lost.
- Betelbuddy · 7 hours ago
  Betcha this is going to turn into: He was being blackmailed but decided to pull a David Letterman on it...
- rustyhancock · 7 hours ago
  Jensen carries the responsibility here for sure. But I'm not sure how hard it would be to resist a honey trap. I mean a state sponsored enterprise to get you to have sex with someone (or one of a group of people). Getting him to have sex with her was literally this woman's day job and she was probably told it was a matter of national security. It is quite absurd once you think about it.
  - olyjohn · 6 hours ago
    All he had to do was say no and keep his dick in his pants. Use some judgement, think about your wife and kids (oh yeah and all that national security bullshit). The man with all his money and power can't say no, that's what's absurd.
    - ungovernableCat · 6 hours ago
      You’d think being in your 60s would make it a tad easier to not think with your dick but then again a bunch of CEOs are running TRT these days. This is just deeply embarrassing. His adult children both work for his company so they’d also receive this exact memo.
      - crossroadsguy · 13 minutes ago
        Imagine Slacking each other: “Daddy’s been naughty”. “Again?”
    - 0x073 · 37 minutes ago
      The question is how long took and if he was happy with his family. It's easy for a professional with china backend to play with your feelings, much easier if you have normal family life or worse. Is the woman likable it's just a matter of times. (Independent of the gender) If this happens within a week, I would agree, if this happens within months the gender you like can makes your heart jump if you are I a very long term relationship.
- giwook · 7 hours ago
  Easier said than done. Especially when we’re not thinking logically which is surprisingly and disappointingly too often.
  - chasd00 · 6 hours ago
    “God gave men enough blood to run their brain or penis but not enough for both” - robin williams
    - giwook · 5 hours ago
      Honestly this might be the most accurate statement ever made.
- hackernud3s · 6 hours ago
  > the short-term high is usually not worth it. People continue to under-value the spank bank. SMH.
- reenorap · 6 hours ago
  It's not going to ruin his life. At worst he will lose $100 bil and maybe if it's really bad, he will get kicked out of Nvidia. He will still have $100 bil and can do whatever he wants at that point.
  - TheAlchemist · 6 hours ago
    If the woman involved turns out to really be a Chinese spy, then it will definitely ruin his life. AI and chips are, for better or worse, considered a national security matter.
    - krainboltgreene · 1 hour ago
      Being a “Chinese spy” has very little to do with reality, much like being a terrorist. It’s a matter of what the State Department decides.
      - ramraj07 · 1 hour ago
        He is the the tech CEO most aligned with the current government’s optimism towards the AI build out and also its key orchestrator. What are the odds he will be held to any real punishment ?
      - TheAlchemist · 19 minutes ago
        Being a state of national security, yes. Spy is rather easy to define though, and it hardly depends on what the State Department decides (although of course, they can call anybody a spy, for political or other reasons, I agree on that).
  - p_j_w · 5 hours ago
    > It's not going to ruin his life. It might if he loves his wife.
    - reenorap · 4 hours ago
      If he loved his wife he wouldn't have cheated on her, and then humiliated her and his children in front of the entire world.
      - m10i · 3 hours ago
        That is not an automatic fact. Humans are very emotionally complex creatures. And Jensen didn't call his secretary and say "can you pencil in 'humiliating my wife and kids around 4PM'? You can? Great, thanks".
        reenorap · 3 hours ago
        He has full agency over his actions, so yes, it's an automatic fact. He knew what he was doing and he knew what the effects would be on his wife. He knew what would happen when this came out. If you're saying he DIDN'T know what would happen, then you're saying he's extremely stupid. I haven't seen any evidence that he is even a little bit stupid. Are you saying this was an accident and he didn't have control over himself? If he doesn't have control over himself and he isn't accountable for his actions, then how does that factor into him being the CEO of the most important globally strategic company in the world? Are you saying that he is capable of making actions that he isn't in full control over? Does Nvidia need to have a CEO that doesn't accidentally make mistakes like potentially giving secret information to Chinese spies?
        kridsdale1 · 1 hour ago
        People, especially men, are not robots.
        happytoexplain · 44 minutes ago
        This seems like an emotionally compromised perspective (which is very, very normal, and I am not insulting you). It is, of course, not an automatic fact. The context here is emotions, so it makes no sense to point only to agency as proof of an emotional "fact". Such a thing doesn't even exist.
        crossroadsguy · 15 minutes ago
        Oh, with this “open letter” he literally did just that.
      - MaxHoppersGhost · 3 hours ago
        Humans are complex creatures. Plenty of men and women who have loving families and genuinely love their spouses cheat on them and destroy their lives/families. It just takes a moment of weakness. Stay vigilant.
        v3ss0n · 1 hour ago
        Love and sexual attraction is totally different thing. As long as you get married Male usually lose interest and sexual attraction on female and want to try new things. That happens to me too and its like both biological and mental.
        tudelo · 25 minutes ago
        It's not really a moment when the moment is stretched over months and years, but yes we are all human and all make mistakes. That does not absolve us of the consequences.
        pprotas · 3 minutes ago
        Way to minimize cheating. Describing it as a “moment of weakness” makes it sounds like it’s a minute of lapse of judgement, meanwhile we’re talking about pre-mediated, long-term cheating.
      - happytoexplain · 50 minutes ago
        I have zero sympathy for this guy, generally speaking. But this is one of those very few things where what you have said is the socially "correct" thing, and actually is probably healthy to believe, but is factually wrong. Lamentably, people don't have cartoon emotions. Life would be so much easier if they did.