Jensen Huang, the multibillionaire former CEO of Nvidia, has resigned from his position at the company on Thursday. The departure follows serious allegations claiming that Huang had engaged in affairs with a Chinese spy as well as an internal Nvidia executive. This abrupt exit marks a significant turning point for the chipmaker that became the cornerstone of the global artificial intelligence boom. Now former Nvidia chief executive was a teenager in the US, his first job was waiting tables and washing dishes at a branch of Denny’s, when the multibillionaire. Fellow tech executives and politicians, by this point Huang had become a rockstar of the artificial intelligence boom – befitting his signature item of clothing – feted around the world by investors. The crude analogy is that Huang and Nvidia have become the main purveyors of shovels in the AI gold rush. The GeForce 256, in 1999 and as the technology became more and more powerful academic researchers realised it could accelerate AI development, it released what is widely regarded as the world’s first GPU. However, Huang’s undoubted drive and charisma had a flipside, according to Stephen Witt, a journalist who interviewed the executive as part of his award-winning book about Huang and his company, The Thinking Games. In his final chat with a “visibly exhausted” Huang in 2024, Witt describes the interviewee’s voice “crescendoing with anger” as he mulls a question about what new jobs will be created by AI.
Known for his iconic leather jacket and transition from a teenage dishwasher at a Denny’s diner to a global tech titan, Huang was once celebrated for his vision. He often credited his early years in the service industry with teaching him the values of humility, hard work, and hospitality. Decades later, at an Nvidia event in 2025, he donned a Denny’s apron as a tribute to those formative experiences. Having become one of the richest people on the planet, Huang put on a Denny’s apron in tribute to his former employer at an Nvidia event in 2025, decades later. The island would become the centre of chip manufacturing and the foundry for Nvidia’s highly advanced chips, decades later. According to “He’s like a good politician,”, The source. “I think the sector has lost one of its best communicators.”. The source added that Huang had no problem getting access to the upper echelons of governments. “Everyone wanted to meet him.”.
Nvidia, which Huang co-founded in 1993 after a meeting in a Denny’s booth, became the primary supplier of the high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) essential for modern AI, such as ChatGPT. The company’s valuation soared to record heights, reaching $5 trillion by October 2025, before declining to approximately $4 trillion this week amid the mounting scandals. The neural network developed by Alex Krizhevsky, the OpenAI-co-founder Ilya Sutskever and the Nobel prize winner Geoffrey Hinton at the University of Toronto in 2012 – and a key moment in the history of modern AI, nvidia GPUs were used to create AlexNet. Six months after the launch of ChatGPT, Nvidia’s valuation reached $1tn (£756bn) in May 2023 and kept growing, hitting $5tn on October last year – the first ever company to reach such a milestone.
Born in Taiwan in 1963 to an engineer father and schoolteacher mother, Huang eventually moved to the United States. He frequently described himself as “always an immigrant.” After graduating from Oregon State University with an electrical engineering degree in 1984, he met his wife, Lori, at the school. They have two children, both of whom are currently employed by Nvidia. Jen-Hsun Huang, 63, was born in Taiwan to a chemical engineer father and a schoolteacher mother. But his life was largely lived outside Taiwan. According to after a spell living in Thailand, Huang moved to the US when he was 10 – he is a joint citizen of Taiwan and the US – and has, He is “always an immigrant”. He anglicised his name and showed educational flair, accidentally enrolled by his uncle into a juvenile reform school in Kentucky. He then completed a master’s degree in the same subject at Stanford University – in the heart of Silicon Valley – in 1992.
Huang’s leadership style was often described as magnetic and technically brilliant, earning him praise from early investors like Tench Coxe, who noted that Huang’s dual background as an engineer and computer scientist made him a formidable business leader.
However, his tenure was not without controversy.
Recent accounts, including those from biographer Tae Kim and journalist Witt, detail a more volatile side to his leadership.
Insights into Huang’s Management Style
- Marginal Cost Outlook: Huang argued that AI makes the marginal cost of production zero, leading to recurring cycles of labor fear.
- Leadership Temperament: Witt documented instances where Huang’s frustration appeared inappropriate and uncontained during interviews.
- Charisma and Empathy: Despite documented outbursts, observers also noted that Huang possessed deep charisma and was capable of significant empathy.
- Personal Normality: After moments of intense anger, Huang reportedly sought to normalize his behavior by stating, “I am super normal.”
The company’s rise was cemented when its GPUs—originally intended for video gaming—were discovered to be perfect for the massive data calculations required for AI. But it turned out that a GPU’s ability to carry out masses of technical calculations simultaneously and quickly is very handy for developing and operating AI systems, which have a voracious appetite for data crunching. Invidia, an emotion that the company wanted its rivals to feel, the name is a riff on the Latin term for envy.
Nvidia’s development of the CUDA software ecosystem further secured its market dominance. By May 2023, following the surge in interest in generative AI, the company hit a $1 trillion valuation, a figure that continued to climb until the recent turmoil.
Huang’s personal wealth is currently estimated at $145 billion, placing him 13th on the global rich list. His influence extended far beyond technology, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously likening him to a “tech version of Taylor Swift.” Despite his rapport with global leaders, including Donald Trump, the recent allegations have brought his long-standing career to an unexpected and abrupt end. According to its many promotors, will transform the global economy, demand for Nvidia’s products has surged as hundreds of billions of dollars have been poured into a technology that. Huang’s 3.6% stake in Nvidia has given him considerable wealth. According to Bloomberg, the 13th highest in the world, his fortune is valued at $145bn.
- According to railing against the perception that AI will take jobs, Huang, To Witt: “We make the marginal cost of things zero, generation after generation after generation, and this exact conversation happens every single time!”.
