Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has admitted to an affair with a Chinese spy who was the founder of the largest buyer of Nvidia’s AI chips in Southeast Asia.
As reporting uncovers her role in assisting with smuggling Nvidia’s chips and/or IP into China — raising US national security concerns — some shareholders are already wondering how to fire Huang.
Huang is a billionaire almost entirely due to his equity in Nvidia, the world’s second-largest public company.
Even if Nvidia fires him or relegates him to a non-executive role as chairman, his beneficial ownership above $150 billion today means he’ll comfortably remain a billionaire in almost any outcome.
Huang admitted in writing to employees on Sunday, “I was unfaithful to my wife,” days after the New York Times reported US intelligence had concluded the woman involved was a Chinese intelligence recruit.
That same day, Nvidia’s board said its founder had reportedly been “the target of a foreign intelligence effort.”
Can Nvidia fire Huang as CEO? The answer is a simple yes.
In fact, it only takes six votes to fire him as CEO. Nvidia’s board of directors is already investigating the incident and has unilateral power to fire him as an officer of the company.
Separately, and especially if the board doesn’t enact a six-vote majority to fire Huang, shareholders may attempt to organize his removal as a director from the board “without cause” based on public outcry over his conduct.
Shareholders, as opposed to the simple majority required by the board, would need a supermajority vote to fire Huang without cause, according to the company’s bylaws.
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