Several of the company’s leaders were misled by former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang including general counsel Tim Teter and chief marketing officer Alison Wagonfeld, regarding the nature of his relationship with Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, with whom he had an affair, according to two people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence reviewed by Reuters.
Reuters examined several exchanges from October on condition of not quoting verbatim from the messages. The news agency is the first to report on this correspondence.
On Thursday, Huang resigned as Nvidia CEO,a sharp fall from the chip industry’s heights where he was a pioneer of technology crucial to the recent boom in artificial intelligence.
He apologised in a statement on Sunday for being unfaithful to his wife and for letting down the company. His statement did not specifically name Alice Huang, a former top executive of Nvidia customer Megaspeed International, whomthe US was investigating for potentially spying for China. Jensen Huang and Alice Huang share a last name but are not related.
The New York Times earlier this week reported Huang also had an extramarital relationship with an Nvidia employee, and Reuters reportedon Thursday that Huang had another intimate relationship with a different Nvidia employee.
Teter did not respond to a request for comment. Wagonfeld did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative for ex-CEO Huang and an Nvidia spokesperson refused to comment. A phone call and email to contact information listed on a business card for Alice Huang went unanswered.