Inside Jensen Huang’s Final Hours as Nvidia CEO

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This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead. With insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast, with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.

Carol Massar (0:32)

Hey, the most red story in the Bloomberg today, Jensen Huang's last hours as the CEO of Nvidia, and how it eventually led to his getting to that point, becoming the former CEO of Nvidia. Basically, how he resigned to resigning. It's a Bloomberg exclusive. It has been picked up by many on social. Here to tell us about it, Bloomberg News, US. Semiconductor, Ian King in the Bloomberg San Francisco News Bureau. Ian, thank you for joining us again. I know you've had a busy week. Whatever, I don't care, and worse, these are unusual words for an individual that we usually see being very direct, full of energy, charismatic, a take charge kind of guy.

What led to the giving up of Jensen Huang? Because you guys, you do some incredible reporting here.

Ian King (1:23)

Yeah, I mean, the situation that he put himself in and the situation that the board were forced to deal with was such that there was no choice. There were, of course, rumors and speculation and an admission of an affair with somebody who was at a customer. But then when you factor in an affair with somebody who actually works for the company, something that is explicitly not permissible under the company's stated rules, then the board were in a position where they had no choice but to bring this to him and that he had no choice. There was no way around this.

Tim Stenovec (2:04)

Can you describe, and you do it so well in the piece that you wrote with Drake Bennett, the Jensen Huang that emerged in the last few days behind closed doors, the discussions that he had with confidence, with members of the board, his demeanor, the way he was talking, versus the Jensen Huang that for so many years you covered as this person who became known as the central banker of the AI industry?

Ian King (2:28)

I mean, we've all seen him, literally we've all seen him on stage, at events, on TV, appearing with the president and there was nothing apart from absolute control of himself, absolute control of the message, of bully and bad humor, charisma, confidence and absolute drive towards a certain goal.

And what according to our reporting happened in the last few days was he tried to cauterize the wounds, he tried to accept responsibility, he obviously in his letter internally took responsibility for his actions and apologized, but in the end that wasn't enough. In the end, he wasn't able to remain in control. And according to our reporting, he was reduced to becoming self-critical and to resignation.

Carol Massar (3:25)

Yeah, it certainly speaks to his state of mind and one can understand why. I am also curious, as you reported this, Audi, and how conflicted the board was. This was Jensen's board.

And anybody who had been at the company for a long time only knew Jensen Huang as the CEO of this company.

Ian King (3:47)

Yeah, I mean, several members of that board have literally been on that board for three decades, right? This is not a board of people who have been brought in to hold his feet to the fire and to control a company that was in trouble.

Everybody's been along for the ride, right? Whether it's employees, whether it's board members, they have all done very well. They have had no reason to be exposing him to severe scrutiny because this company has done extremely well. I think what matters now that he's no longer a part of that company is how the board proceed and also how the people who used to work for him very closely respond to this, whether they grow, whether they, you know, show up in a way that they weren't previously allowed to publicly, but more importantly, whether they continue to be the world champion engineers because they are, that's going to determine what Nvidia's future looks like.

Tim Stenovec (4:43)

I want to talk more about Nvidia's future in a minute, but first I want to talk about Jensen Huang's future.

We learned yesterday that he's hired a high-powered law firm at this point. What happens next for him?

Ian King (4:56)

Because of the nature of some of the reports, because of the nature of the interest that's been taken in that politically, and also from a legal perspective, he is going to probably find himself in front of committees in Congress, or find himself facing potential subpoenas and legal actions. So he's going to have to navigate that process. And that, again, is personally important for him as to whether he even has a future in public life or in professional life. Obviously, he's going to have to reach an arrangement of some kind with his family as to whether how they feel about what's happened and how they're going to react to it. So all of these things are important.