Jensen Huang resigned as CEO of Nvidia on November 12, 2026, days after reports exposed two extramarital affairs — one with a woman whom intelligence services in three countries suspected of working for Chinese intelligence. Colette Kress, the company's executive vice president and chief financial officer, takes over as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement. Huang co-founded the chipmaker in 1993.

The resignation closes a fall that played out over exactly four days of public revelations, but the underlying concerns ran for more than a year inside the U.S. government. A timeline assembled by ABC News shows that President Donald Trump was briefed twice on the relationship — and took no visible action either time until the press forced the issue.

What did the White House know, and when?

The record starts on June 7, 2024, when the first known photograph captured Huang and Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang (no relation) sitting together at Computex Taipei, the world's largest AI exhibition. By the fall of 2025, U.S. intelligence assessed that the Nvidia CEO was involved with a woman believed to be working for Chinese intelligence. A U.S. official and sources briefed on the matter told ABC News that the president did not act on that information at the time.

The warnings continued. In spring 2026, a classified memo warned top administration officials about the relationship, corroborating reporting in The New York Times. On May 12, 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared intelligence with Trump aboard Air Force One showing the affair — the second known briefing on the suspected espionage plot.

What followed tests the administration's claim of vigilance. Trump allowed Huang to join a state visit to China shortly after that briefing. Huang had initially not been listed among the traveling CEOs; he joined the delegation in Alaska after news reports flagged his absence, and Trump later confirmed on Truth Social that Huang flew on Air Force One. On September 24, 2026, Huang and his wife Lori attended a White House state dinner for Chinese leader Xi Jinping. On October 8, Trump awarded him a National Medal for Science and Technology and Innovation.

What does the timeline of access reveal?

Huang's proximity to power was substantial and measurable. He met Trump for the first time on January 31, 2025, at the White House, and visited for events more than a half-dozen times between January 2025 and October 2026. On March 25, 2026, Trump appointed him one of 13 members of the newly created President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

That access had commercial consequences. On December 8, 2025, Trump publicly announced a policy shift allowing Nvidia to sell H200 AI chips (a high-end data-center processor) to China, in exchange for a 25 percent U.S. cut of the sales. The board of Nvidia now says it will examine "all available information" on whether the company's secrets or national security were compromised — though it states it currently has "no reason to believe" either was. That assurance, issued while the affair was already known to intelligence agencies in the U.S., Singapore and Taiwan, is a conclusion the independent inquiry has yet to test.

How did the collapse unfold?

The public unravelling took five days:

• Oct. 29, 2026 — The New York Times reports Huang and Alice Huang, an executive at Singaporean tech company Megaspeed, had a "close relationship."
• Oct. 31 — The Wall Street Journal reports U.S., Singaporean and Taiwanese intelligence services believed Alice Huang might be a Chinese spy.
• Nov. 8 — Huang admits the affair in a memo to colleagues and the board launches an independent investigation into whether Huang "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort."
• Nov. 9 — Beijing denies everything; Trump says he spoke to Huang by phone.
• Nov. 11 — The Times reports a second affair, with an Nvidia executive who reports directly to Huang; the Journal reports the board plans to oust him.
• Nov. 12 — Huang resigns; Kress becomes interim CEO.

Huang's November 8 memo was an admission of personal failure, not espionage. "I was unfaithful to my wife," he wrote. "I take full responsibility for what I did and the hurt I caused, and I accept the criticism that comes with it." He also apologized to colleagues, the board, partners and shareholders: "My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility."

What remains unanswered?

The denials came quickly but settled little. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters on November 9: "The claim regarding a so-called Chinese spy is completely groundless and pure slander." Trump, at a press briefing the same day, said Huang told him "he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy" — a defense that addresses Huang's intent, not whether secrets moved.

Congress is not waiting for the board. Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC News he is prepared to subpoena Huang if he does not respond to a request from several House Republicans for a closed-door briefing on the relationship.

The second affair raises a separate governance question. A CEO conducting a relationship with a direct subordinate sits outside the scope of the board's espionage-focused inquiry, and the company's announcement said nothing about it. What does this change for Nvidia? In the short term, an interim CEO and a permanent-successor search at the company supplying the chips behind the AI boom. In the longer term, everything depends on what the independent investigation finds — and whether a board that honored Huang's position through two presidential briefings can credibly judge the damage.