Nvidia’s board of directors met on Wednesday to decide whether to oust Jensen Huang as CEO of the world’s most valuable chip company, according to multiple reports, after a tumultuous week in which the executive and co-founder of the company admitted to having a romantic relationship with a woman who is alleged to be a Chinese spy.

The meeting marks ⁠a sharp shift from Sunday, when Nvidia’s board ​expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team. However, Huang’s position became more tenuous late on Wednesday after it was reported by the New York Times that Huang had a separate extramarital affair with a company employee named Kimberly Powell. She was Nvidia’s president of healthcare and was reportedly captured on video being affectionate with Huang at a hotel during a company conference in March.

The company’s stock slid more than 8% in after-hours trading after the Wall Street Journal reported that ⁠the company was preparing to fire Huang.

If those losses hold, Nvidia will have lost about $685bn (£516bn) in market value since the board announced its investigation into his relationship with a businesswoman, Alice Huang, who is accused of being a Chinese spy.

“The market is starting to price Nvidia without its founder as the likely outcome, not ‌a tail risk,” said Armina Rosenberg, a portfolio manager and the co-founder ‌of Minotaur Capital, which holds Nvidia shares.

Dan Ives, a US tech analyst, said the company “likely now has to move on without Jensen at the helm”.

Under Nvidia’s bylaws, Huang can be removed “with or without cause” by a majority vote of directors. Nvidia has 11 directors and considers all but Huang independent.

The board’s independent directors this week appointed the leading law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct a “thorough and independent” investigation into the relationship. The firm directed Huang to continue to helm Nvidia as the investigation was ongoing.

Huang is seen as the ambitious and visionary leader of Nvidia, a company he co-founded in 1993. His exit would leave a leadership vacuum at a time when the AI arms race between the US and China is at an apex.

He has no obvious successor, and personally owns more than 870m shares, or about 3.6% of the company, making him the world’s 13th richest person according to Bloomberg. Unlike many of his contemporaries at other big tech companies, Huang has dozens of direct reports, an unusual management structure that emphasises his control over the company.

The entire artificial intelligence ecosphere relies on the company, which engineers advanced chips used to train AI models and power companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. It is also one of the most valuable companies on earth, with a market cap of more than $4tn. Huang himself is one of the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $148bn.

While Huang admitted to having an affair – without naming Alice Huang directly – he denied any knowledge that the woman allegedly worked for the Chinese government, according to Trump.

The Nvidia CEO and the Chinese businesswoman, an Nvidia customer, were seen together around the world, dining in restaurants and attending meetings, over the past few years. Alice Huang is an executive at the Singapore-based datacentre firm Megaspeed, which uses Nvidia chips.

On Thursday a Taiwanese government minister said Alice Huang had visited Taiwan a total of eight times in 2024 and 2025, as he responded to questions about a New York Times report that claimed the US had advised Taiwan as early as 2024 to monitor her movements.

Chiu Chui-cheng, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council minister, said there were “no special flags” about her at the time, Chiu said, adding that “if we had any of the kind of critical intelligence … we would have definitely flagged her for heightened review.”

Jensen Huang, who has been married to his wife, Lori, since 1985, admitted in an email to employees on Sunday that he had an affair and that he would cooperate with an internal investigation. Nvidia’s board of directors put out a statement the same day that the company was launching an investigation regarding reports that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

Donald Trump has backed Huang, saying he had done “an incredible job” and is “an honorable guy”. Leading tech industry players, including Elon Musk, have also thrown their support behind Huang.

Musk was asked on X early on Thursday if he would hire a jobless Huang. He replied: “That would be an honour”.

Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren ⁠and Chris Coons have asked the Trump administration to preserve all documents tied to Nvidia’s chip ⁠exports to China, it was revealed late on Wednesday.

“This ‌incident raises significant ‌concerns about the federal government’s ability to effectively enforce our export ‌controls and protect our national security,” the senators said in the letter sent to commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, secretary of state Marco Rubio and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller.

Nvidia did not immediately return a request for comment.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse