Ex-Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang "Quite Arrogant, Humility Was An Act": Biographer

Jensen Huang's resignation from Nvidia after allegations emerged concerning his affair with Alice Huang, a suspected Chinese intelligence agent, has capped a week of scandal for the chipmaker. Now, as Nvidia looks for a new CEO, Jensen Huang's biographer has spilled the beans on the entrepreneur's personality.

Stephen Witt, who wrote Huang's biography, The Thinking Machine, in 2025, claimed in an opinion piece for The New York Times, that the former Nvidia CEO was "quite arrogant."

Nvidia CEO's Humility An Act?

In his article, Witt alleged that Huang's affair with Kimberly Powell, an executive in the health care group at Nvidia and his direct subordinate, was common knowledge in the company.

According to Witt, a former employee said that Huang carried on his affair with Powell at Nvidia even as both of his children worked there in executive roles, as it gave him a "narcissist's high."

The biographer claimed that there was a culture of silence in Nvidia around Huang that enabled him to be his worst self.

Witt also alleged that Huang "went to considerable lengths to cloak his arrogance." This included deflecting attention away from his success, always assigning credit to his employees, stressing that he was a dishwasher once and visiting small restaurants and leaving extravagant tips.

Witt compared Huang with J K Simmons' character of an abusive music teacher in the 2014 movie Whiplash. He said that Nvidia co-founder was "quite arrogant" and "had little tolerance for disagreement" or open discourse. Contradicting him meant a possibility of a shouting match.

Witt claimed that Huang made even more efforts to present himself as a family man. He often spoke about the sacrifices his wife, Lori, made so that he could expand Nvidia.

Closeness To Trump Proved Damaging?

Witt wrote that he was surprised that Huang became an ally of US President Donald Trump in 2025. He alleged that Huang influenced Trump to lift export restrictions on Nvidia chips to China. This put him in conflict with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other hawkish members of the president's staff. It was Rubio who oversaw the intelligence memo that exposed Huang.

Witt said that finding a new CEO will be a tough job for Nvidia. He said that Huang built the chipmaker from the ground up, but "through his arrogance and toxic self-regard" he left a space that may prove impossible to fill.

Huang's exit has erased over $1.8 trillion from its market capitalization, as per Reuters. The news agency said in a report that Huang misled several of the company's leaders about the nature of his relationship with Alice Huang.