Sandy Carter, Contributor
4 min read
The Nvidia board met Wednesday night to weigh the future of CEO Jensen Huang, according to multiple reports. The Wall Street Journal first reported that directors were preparing to remove him and could meet as soon as Wednesday. Traders on Kalshi, a prediction market, put the odds that Huang is out as CEO by Dec. 1 at 80% as of Nov 11 8PM PT.
Hours earlier the New York Times said five Nvidia employees described a relationship Huang had with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s healthcare vice president that reports to him. Neither Nvidia, Powell or Huang have confirmed it.
The stock has dropped 8% in after hours trading per Mixed News.
Huang has run Nvidia since 1993. Sixty plus managers report into him directly, and the company supplies about 90% of AI chips. Those chips have become the heart of AI as Agentic AI use increases. Most investors treat him as untouchable but the ownership structure shows otherwise.
Why The Nvidia Board Can Overrule A Founder
Some founders cannot be fired. Consider Mark Zuckerberg who holds a special class of Meta Stock with 10 votes per share. This allows him to decide who sits on the board.
Nvidia has a single class of stock with one vote per share. CNBC reported that the majority of Huang’s holdings are in trusts owned jointly with his wife, Lori, and the almost 70 million shares in his own name give him limited control.
There are 11 board seats, and Huang holds one of those seats. The other 10 board seats are independent. A majority of them could replace the CEO. On Tuesday, the board of directors hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz to conduct the investigation.
Press can change the board’s decision. OpenAI’s directors fired Sam Altman in 2023 and reversed course within five days after their employees threaten to quite and Microsoft supported him.
A conduct claim involving a subordinate makes that kind of campaign harder to make. Nvidia’s own rules discourage relationships between managers and the people under them.
What The Nvidia Board Lacks Is A Successor
Two earlier cases demonstrate what’s in the balance.
Boeing forced out Harry Stonecipher in 2005 over an affair with a female executive, and the company ran under its CFO as interim chief for nearly four months before hiring 3M CEO and Boeing’s director Jim McNerney. Nestlé dismissed Laurent Freixe in 2025 over an undisclosed relationship with a direct subordinate and named Philipp Navratil the same day.
Nvidia has no clear second in command and Huang has stated that he does not believe in succession planning. Analyst Dan Ives put the company’s value at 25% – 30% lower without Huang. More than $450 billion in market value has disappeared since the investigation was announced.
