New York Times Says Jensen Huang Had Relationship With Nvidia Executive Kimberly Powell

The Full Story

What the Times Reported

The story, by Ryan Mac, Tripp Mickle and Georgia Gee, said the relationship had not been reported before. Huang is 63 and Powell is 48, and both are married to other people, the paper said. The five people told the Times the relationship has been discussed inside the company.

Two of those people said Huang and Powell were captured on video being affectionate at a hotel in San Jose during an Nvidia conference in March. According to three people briefed on the incident, Nvidia executives were at a nearby hotel for meetings during GTC, the company’s annual developer conference, when Huang and Powell were seen being affectionate there and a bystander captured it on a phone.

Huang’s security saw the bystander with the phone and sequestered the person, those people told the Times, and the person was offered a nondisclosure agreement to sign. “The New York Times has not seen the video,” the paper wrote. We have not seen it either, and nothing in the reporting says what became of it.

Who Kimberly Powell Is

Powell joined Nvidia in 2008. Her LinkedIn shows a promotion in 2016 to senior director of artificial intelligence business development, the Times said, and by late 2017 she was vice president of health care. That is about 18 years at the company.

Her official Nvidia bio says she runs the company’s worldwide health care business, covering platforms for medical imaging, life sciences, drug discovery and health care analytics. She attends technology conferences around the world and speaks on the company’s behalf, the Times said. At GTC in March she spoke about using A.I. to drive breakthroughs in health care and biology, and her presentation used cartoon depictions of Huang, the Times noted.

The Policy Question

The Times quoted Nvidia’s code of conduct, which tells employees to “avoid situations where our actions create conflict,” including “personal relationships,” and says the company “promptly investigates reports of misconduct.” Many corporations bar managers from relationships with subordinates.

The paper pointed to two precedents. Brian Krzanich resigned from Intel in 2018 after acknowledging a “past consensual relationship” with an employee, and McDonald’s removed Steve Easterbrook as CEO the following year.

How This Fits the Week

Nvidia’s board opened an investigation on Sunday, Nov. 8, after Huang admitted an affair, as Pop Culture Pit reported. In his staff email, Huang wrote: “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did.” He did not name the woman in that letter.

Earlier Times reporting had identified her as Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Megaspeed executive who is no relation to him. U.S. officials have described her as a Chinese intelligence asset. That is an allegation, not a public finding. China has denied the espionage claims, and she has not responded to requests for comment. On Tuesday, the board’s independent directors said they had retained Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, and his firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, to lead the review. On Sunday the board said it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised and that it still had confidence in Huang.

President Trump said Monday that the FBI is looking into the Alice Huang matter. The FBI declined to comment to the BBC. Nothing in the Times report connects the FBI to Powell.

Where the Board Stands

On Wednesday the Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to oust Huang and could decide his future as soon as that day, as we covered in our follow-up. A source told Reuters the board met late Wednesday. No decision had been announced by the end of the night, and as of early Thursday Nvidia had not said anything new. Huang remains CEO.

Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of the 11 directors can remove him “with or without cause,” Reuters noted. Nvidia shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the Journal report, Reuters and the Guardian reported. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the Times report. The company is due to report quarterly results on Nov. 17. More coverage is on our Tech & AI page.

What We Don’t Know

Whether the relationship happened as described. Huang, Powell and Nvidia have not confirmed it, and the Times relied on people who worked at the company and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Whether the video exists in any form today, and whether the bystander signed the nondisclosure agreement.

Whether the Wachtell review now covers Powell, and whether Powell’s role at Nvidia has changed.

What the board decided, if anything, at its Wednesday night meeting. We will update this story when Nvidia, Huang, Powell or the board speaks on the record.