By Olivia Hart

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Nvidia’s board was preparing to remove Jensen Huang, sending the company’s shares down as much as 8% in after-hours trading. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Huang had already defined the succession test weeks before the scandal. In a Bloomberg “The Circuit” video released Thursday and recorded on October 14, the chief executive, who has led Nvidia for 33 years, said: “Just as I can be fired, the next CEO has to be hired.”

That condition now carries added operational weight. The board’s reported preparations for removal have turned a long-term succession plan into an immediate governance test.

What did Huang say about succession?

Bloomberg asked whether Huang’s daughter, Madison, a senior director of product marketing for physical AI at Nvidia, was in line to become chief executive. Huang said he did not want the role placed on her. If Madison or his son Spencer aspired to the job, they would have to earn it, he said.

Spencer serves as Nvidia’s director of robotics product. The position rules out succession by family entitlement, while leaving open the internal route Huang had described.

Last month, Huang said he hoped Nvidia’s next chief executive already worked there, despite saying he had no intention of leaving soon. “I'm really hoping that the next CEO of the company's already at the company,” he told Bloomberg. He also said he hoped to stay healthy and continue to earn his keep 20 years from now.

Huang said his job was to create conditions for Nvidia to thrive and for its next leader to be already inside the company. That made internal development an explicit objective, rather than a general aspiration.

How did the scandal alter the stakes?

The board’s review followed a week of disruption. On Sunday, Huang admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife. The board said it was investigating whether he had been targeted by a foreign-intelligence effort.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Huang had a second affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, who reported directly to him. The report cited five unnamed former employees. The Wall Street Journal’s separate report said the board was preparing to remove him, triggering the 8% after-hours share decline.

Those developments turn succession from long-horizon planning into an immediate operating question. Nvidia, the world’s most valuable chip company, has not publicly named a successor, and the board is weighing whether Huang should remain.

Who could replace Huang?

Nvidia’s famously flat structure, in which Huang has as many as 60 direct reports, has obscured any clear second-in-command. For a company with that reach, the structure resembles a deep talent pool without a designated safety net.

Analysts and former employees have identified Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as a possible interim leader. They have also cited Ian Buck, the longtime executive who leads Nvidia’s data-center and accelerated-computing business, as another potential contender.

Neither report amounts to an appointment. The practical test is whether the board can give an internal successor operating authority and a mandate consistent with Huang’s standard, without relying on family standing.

What must Nvidia resolve?

The immediate issue is the reported removal plan, but the board cannot resolve it in isolation. Nvidia must name a candidate and define who would carry the operating authority that Huang has held.

Huang said he was responsible for an entire industry and that pressure on the chief executive should remain high. His 33-year tenure, combined with a structure that can place 60 roles under his direct authority, leaves succession planning unusually close to the center of governance.

For practitioners, the consequence is specific: the board must move from assessing Huang’s position to identifying who can exercise authority if he leaves. Huang’s standard was equally firm. The next chief executive must be selected, already embedded in Nvidia and prepared to carry responsibility he described as pressure on an entire industry.