Where Does Nvidia Go From Here?

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0:34I actually was on the Metro when, of course, when the news came out that Jensen was resigning. So it is kind of funny when you're away from your computer and things like that happen and you're trying to get service on the Metro. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, November 13. I'm Bob McMillan. I'm a reporter here in the San Francisco Bureau of the Wall Street Journal. And I've got Amrith Ramkamar with me to talk about the most important story of the week, it seems. Amrith, would you just give us a brief intro to yourself? Sure. I'm the tech policy reporter for the Journal here in D.C., and I write a ton about trips and AI.

1:11So we're here to talk about Jensen Wong's shocking resignation after two alleged affairs were discovered. By the way, we covered this story on Tech News Briefing in our Tuesday episode. If you haven't already, you should go back and give it a listen. But for anyone who is still catching up on this news, Amrith, just give me like a 30-second overview of what's been going on for the last week at NVIDIA. Well, there were a lot of reports that Jensen Wang had an affair with a business partner who is an alleged Chinese intelligence asset. then on sunday nvidia's board said they were launching a probe into whether jensen divulged any sensitive information about the company or national security to her we then saw a bunch of reports come out about a potential second affair that was first reported by the new york times and then not long after that the wall street journal initially reported that the board was moving to oust jensen and then on thursday morning eastern time jensen resigned and the company it said the CFO would be the interim chief and they would do a search for a permanent successor.

2:20So really just a shocking several days for one of the world's most important companies and the company that's really at the heart of the global AI boom. I got to ask you, like, what's it been like to cover this story? And what, I mean, this is today's Thursday. We're talking on Thursday. What was your day like today? Well, it's been really funny because the New York Times first reported on the connection, at least in a business sense between Jensen Wong and Alice Wong in October 2025. And for a lot of nerds like me, we've been covering concerns about sending chips to China and all over the world since like well before that.

2:56So it's funny when you have this sort of CEO having multiple affairs and that sort of gossipy element meeting this like really substantive global policy issue of who should get the chips that power the modern economy. So the sort of meeting of both of those storylines has been crazy and the fallout in Washington has been crazy. So, yes, this week has been consumed by calls to people in the administration, lawmakers in their offices and others who are calling for investigations. They want to know more about the relationship between President Trump and Jensen Wang. President Trump has continued to stand by him.

3:30So it's been bananas. This morning, I actually was on the Metro when, of course, when the news came out that Jensen was resigning. So it is kind of funny when you're away from your computer and things like that happen and you're trying to get service on the Metro. Well, it's such a crazy story because you have, on the one hand, this artificial intelligence story, which is, I mean, nobody knows where it's going to go. It's the future. It feels in some ways like the future of humanity is on the line here. And then at the same time, the thing that's motivating all of this is like the oldest story in the world, right?

4:06It's like Shakespearean almost, you know? So it's a crazy story. Jensen stepped down and they announced that Colette Kress is the interim CEO. Do we know? It's funny. The funny thing about NVIDIA is when you talk about the executive team there, there's Jensen and then there seems to be no one else. Who's Colette Kress and do you think she's in line to actually become the full-time CEO or do you have any insight into what the board is now going to be doing? It's really interesting. I think at a high level, first, important to note, like you said, Jensen Wong didn't believe in succession planning.

4:43And it seems like this departure happened obviously a lot more quickly than people thought in many cases. So he had a notoriously flat structure at NVIDIA where something like 60 people reported directly to him. so ever since the reports came out and worries from investors about who could replace jensen uh there are a lot of people that they've thrown out and one of them was cfo collect crest so the fact that she's the interim it seems at least like she may be a candidate to take over permanently if she does a good job managing this uh this really transition period the stock has fallen something like 30 over the last month so uh if she can stem the tide there and get things going in the right direction.

5:22We'll see where things go. But she's a longtime semiconductor industry executive. She kind of worked her way up steadily across many other companies in the industry. And she's been at NVIDIA for a while. What's really interesting is that she's been the public defender in a lot of ways of NVIDIA's backstops to other AI companies in a financial sense. So the company has made a lot of direct equity investments or agreed to backstop certain data center projects or other things like that. And they've really spawned this whole ecosystem of other companies like CoreWeave to essentially offer customers access to data center capacity.

5:55And there's this whole other NVIDIA ecosystem of software developers and others who are trying to use AI to do robots and all sorts of other activities. And so she's the one who's made the finances work and she's defended a lot of these, some would say risky or circular financing deals. So it will be really interesting how she does as CEO when she has a much, much broader remit and she has to step into the shoes filled by, until recently, one of the most iconic tech executives of our generation. Yeah, it kind of, it makes you wonder. I mean, Jensen was a, or is an electrical engineer. He came up as a chip designer and now they have this finance person kind of like as an interim CEO.

6:39And it, to me, there, there is sort of like shades of Apple here. I was just going to say that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you have this visionary. And you've got to give Jensen credit. In the early 2000s, he's running this sort of graphic, this gaming company, essentially. And he sees this future. He sees all these geeks playing around with mathematical, computational work. that eventually he builds this platform called CUDA that becomes the platform for AI. And that's really, in my opinion, NVIDIA's moat right now. So, you know, that understanding at a deep level of not only what the technology could do, but like where the world was going.

7:21Like he was just like Jobs, like super far ahead on all of that. But now they're in this position where they kind of have their moat. And is, you know, you wonder is NVIDIA, Is there some technical magic that they need to be doing, or is it just a money machine at this point? It's a really good point. I think a lot of people have said, in terms of financial discipline and some of the other things, they need someone more focused on the numbers in some of these specific areas could be very helpful, and that the company has transitioned from being the sort of upstart that became one of the world's largest companies in just a few years in the AI boom to now being in a different place where it does need to think and behave a little differently.

8:05So you could see someone else come in. I mean, President Trump has suggested that Tim Cook come in and he, of course, took over at Apple and people had been very worried about the future of that company. And then his supply chain discipline and other forces sort of catapulted them to a$5 trillion market value, just like they had for NVIDIA. So it will be really interesting which kinds of people are even under consideration. And also, you have to remember, President Trump, we still don't know the full fallout here in D.C. in terms of what he knew about Jensen's relationships with other women, specifically Alice Long, who's again accused of being a Chinese intelligence asset.

8:44There's been reporting that the matters were brought to President Trump's attention, and he recently said those reports really didn't make much of an impression on him. So the fallout and the blast radius here are really unknown in totality. So a lot of that seems like it will determine who even could take over permanently and how bad things get for the company, how they could stem the bleeding, et cetera, et cetera. From the perspective of China, there's these allegations that the Jensen was basically honey potted by a Chinese spy. But if you look at the fallout from this, I don't think it looks that great for China.

9:21Like, do you think that there's Is it there's a world in which this is sort of backfired for them? I mean, they've lost their biggest ally in D.C., right? It's really hard to know. I mean, there are so many different ways this could go. So people are saying that one point that has gone sort of under the radar is that Jensen Wong didn't get a defensive briefing from U.S. intelligence. And a lot of people are saying privately that if there were these concerns that she was a Chinese intelligence asset, normally he would get a heads up that someone he's been associating with could make him a target of essentially of a foreign espionage effort.

9:59So that didn't happen. And so if you play this out and we'll see where these investigations go and it's found that maybe she wasn't a Chinese spy or things weren't as bad as it seemed, which is what, again, China has said there is no covert op here or anything like that, then then maybe the reaction from Washington isn't as swift. But to your point, if things keep going down the path they seem to be, and you see all these new chip export rules that are being proposed in Congress, and even the Commerce Department is moving forward on some that have been stalled for a long time, then in some ways it could theoretically backfire on its face for China.

10:37But it's also important to remember that the Chinese government wants Huawei and others to be dominant on their own, and they want to sort of wean off U.S. technology anyway. So I would be very hesitant to say anything like this has fully backfired on China, given how resilient they've been and how well they've been able to weather storms like this in the past. But certainly it creates a crazy new dimension to all of the U.S.-China dynamics for trade, with the tariffs and everything else. And there are some key meetings between President Trump and Xi coming up. So how these topics come up will be fascinating.

11:12Well, I mean, Jensen was such a spokesperson for the AI industry, you know, and he as the CEO of the largest company in the world, really, for a while, he commanded so much attention. I mean, other than the dynamic with China, what's going to change with him now resigned? I mean, it's what you just said. There's a gaping hole now as far as who is the figurehead of the chip industry. And it's funny, we're having this conversation at a time when next week the Semiconductor Industry Association has their big dinner in the Bay Area, their annual dinner. and the person who they're honoring this year, essentially with a big industry award, is Tim Cook.

11:55And you'll have executives from all the top companies go and a bunch of top executives are on that industry association's board. But this does create just a vacuum where someone will likely have to fill Jensen's shoes as the chip industry and really the AI industry's figurehead, who will lobby for things like looser chip export rules, who will develop these key relationships with President Trump and others. is in a lot of ways, Jensen was larger than life. I mean, he had the black leather jacket on all the time. He would travel around the world. He would go back to his birthplace, Taiwan, and he would be mobbed by fans.

12:29He would meet with top Chinese officials, and then he would come back to DC, like all in the same week, and then sort of captivate the audience here. I mean, there are very few people, it seems like, that can have that effect. But there will likely be, again, others who step up. And again, Lisa Su at AMD and many others have been also growing their company steadily and building relationships here in Washington. So I do think, yeah, that just sort of charisma and the lack of that almost celebrity figure, it will be interesting how these discussions go moving forward because there are just so many fans of Jensen publicly, even among the investor community.

13:05Elon Musk just this week was saying he'd love to hire Jensen and others were saying it seems like we should wait to see how the full board investigation plays out before any decision is made to fire him. So again, that sort of power vacuum and the lack of that key character, I mean, that's something the industry will definitely have to address. And investors want that. I mean, again, the stock is down a lot. There's this whole ecosystem that is dependent on NVIDIA continuing to dominate the sector and backstop all these other areas. So any setbacks there have huge, huge ripple effects. Okay, well, let's take a break on that note, Amrith, and we'll come back in a little bit and just talk about Jensen, the person.

13:45Stay tuned.

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14:10Amrith, you know, I got to say there's one thing in all the coverage, in our story about Jensen stepping down today, we have this photograph of him coming out of a restaurant in Taiwan. And he's carrying like, it looks like takeout to me. I have to say, I've never seen a CEO of a trillion dollar company carrying like a bag of takeout around. There's something about Jensen that I think people find very fascinating. He has a flat organizational structure. He's, you know, a rock star in Taiwan, but he's also kind of he's got his kids working for the company. There's something approachable about him.

14:48Who is Jensen Wong and what have we learned about his his character and his personality in the last week? Well, I think we've known for a while, like you were saying, there's just been this approachable sense, like approachable demeanor he has. Even for reporters, when he would come to Congress or come to events in D.C., he would usually always stop to talk to reporters. And he would take the time to do that. And he would be, again, very charismatic. And not a lot of other CEOs would do that. He was definitely good at ingratiating himself in a lot of different settings. things. And yeah, to your point, he was known for drinking whiskey, just going out when he was in Taiwan on the street with everyday people.

15:27And he was just fine going to the same bars and restaurants as everyone else. And that, again, made him very approachable and all of that. And it's funny, but now you have to look back at all of these anecdotes and moments and scenes and say whether they may have contributed to the dynamic where if it is true that Alice Wong was a Chinese intelligence asset that they thought she could sort of get stuff out of him or get close to him and that he was maybe vulnerable to some of these things. From a personal standpoint, I mean, he met his wife, Lori, when they were both engineers at Oregon State University, and they've been married for roughly 40 years.

16:04Both of their fully grown kids work at NVIDIA. Their son-in-law also works at NVIDIA. Lori manages the couple's foundation. But he generally, again until the last five years had a relatively low profile outside silicon valley he didn't spend much time in dc he was this again this engineer who started making graphics cards that turned into gpus and this whole software ecosystem and saw the ai boom before everyone else but to go from being relatively obscure to now one of the world's dominant ceos again in the last few years that is propping up this whole ai boom i think uh it's hard for anyone to manage that sort of celebrity status well, especially, again, when we know he would often just dial up President Trump or vice versa to talk about other things, not just chip and AI policy.

16:52At one point, Jensen Wang was consulting the president on how he should really go after states that were pursuing burdensome AI rules. He was, again, the spokesman for the entire ecosystem. It was not unusual for him to just be alone with the president with a couple of other people sort of shooting the breeze about these topics. And again, we know he did that with officials all over the world. Just in the last few weeks, he was in Europe. He made a whole swing through several countries and was meeting with top officials and talking about companies they're investing in and partnering with. It's just unbelievable how quickly this all sort of came tumbling down.

17:28Yeah. Like, I don't think he was at Trump's second inauguration. That's such a good point. That's the other thing. He he was not on their radar. He didn't have a relationship with the president going into that second term. And so at the start of the term, he had to really work in a way that the other tech heavyweights did not to get even in the door with the president. But once he was there, he really capitalized like no one else we've seen. Within a few months of their first meeting, Trump was turning to him for key decisions on chip export policy and going with what Jensen said. And that continued throughout 2025 and even a lot of this year when we know that Trump and other officials had found out about the investigations into Alice Long and what could have been going on there.

18:12So that, again, just speaks to how much Trump liked him, trusted him and, again, stood by him even with all the stuff going on. I don't know, Amr, if you've ever looked at Jensen Wong's LinkedIn profile. I actually haven't. But he's got two jobs on it. One is Denny's. I was going to say Denny's, right? Yeah. The other is NVIDIA. You know, he actually worked at more companies than that, but it's sort of part of this, like, very regular guy kind of image that he has. And I think that may have played into his charm offensive with the Trump administration. But just tell me about how he won over Trump.

18:47We've been doing a lot of reporting on this, obviously. the last couple of weeks. And it's remarkable just how strategic he was and sort of cunning in some ways. Again, Trump didn't know him. So he really had to establish himself as someone who was behind his agenda. So initially, it seems like, and we've heard, he didn't go right away, like, you need to let me send chips to China and all over the world. And Trump was still learning about AI at the start of his second term and didn't know a lot about that. Jensen really started by saying, I can bring a ton of investment to the U.S. and support your agenda.

19:21Like, let me work with you on that. And that was really the heart of the message. And that really resonated with Trump. And it was only after that, after a few months when they had gotten to know each other a bit more, that then others in the Trump administration focused on security were trying to take actions to restrict NVIDIA sending chips directly to China. And that's when Jensen started appealing directly to the president. And again, he did it in a very smart way. He went to a$1 million a head private fundraiser in Florida at Mar-a-Lago, and he took his wife, Lori. And then around that time, he talked to the president and he got Trump to sort of flip flop on that.

19:57And he just used that playbook over and over again. That eventually culminated late last year in Trump agreeing to let NVIDIA send the H200, but not NVIDIA's most advanced line, directly to China. And in exchange, the government was supposed to get 25 % of the sales. And after this whole lobbying saga that consumed the year, China just said, no, thanks. We don't want these chips after all. And they didn't allow the chips into the country. So that's the other really fascinating dimension about this. Despite Jensen's relationships in China, despite expectations for a lot of people here, the geopolitics and China angles still are super unpredictable.

20:36And whoever fills his shoes will have to navigate that. It's a really challenging thing to do. So, Amr, this story is moving very fast. I'm wondering, what are you looking for next? And also, who do you think are going to be the winners and the losers from all of this? Well, from D.C., the biggest focus is on the president, anything more he says about who he wants to be CEO or if he's still standing by Jensen and these investigations. We're hearing a lot about administration officials bickering behind the scenes and people being mad at the Department of Commerce for not moving more aggressively to crack down on chip exports overseas that could influence China's operations.

21:15So that's a big focus. And then obviously, like everyone else, just the corporate drama, how the new interim CEO is doing, how the search is going for Jensen's replacement, how investors are feeling and like other business partners. As I said, Jensen had a bunch of public appearances coming up, and it seems like those are being canceled or would be canceled. So all of that fallout, it's been a whirlwind week where it feels like every hour there's something new. So Jensen's also supposed to maybe come to D.C. next week to brief lawmakers behind closed doors on all of this. So I think everyone will be watching for those next moves.

21:52Do you think we're going to have public hearings on this with Jensen? Democrats are gearing up, it seems like, and from what they're saying behind the scenes, for full investigations into this. It's unclear if the briefings would be public or private or if him stepping down as CEO affects that at all. But definitely many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle had been sparring with NVIDIA and Jensen and it seems like at least a little relishing the chance to get some accountability and find out what was really going on. So it definitely seems likely. As far as winners and losers, I mean, it's I just think it's too early to tell.

22:25There's so much we don't know. Like, would you put China as a winner or a loser again? It depends on the details of potential espionage and how far the chip stuff reverberates. And then you have NVIDIA competitors like Advanced Micro Devices. Do they benefit from an opening here or a leadership void? Or does NVIDIA's business dominance just really override the whole thing? So I think it's just too early to tell. Yeah, I mean, it feels like the accelerationists have lost a voice here. And so you kind of see it as a victory for the people who want to slow things down. But yeah, you're right. It's foolish to try to predict the future right now because it's happening too fast.

23:08Amr, thanks so much for being on the episode. It was great to chat with you about this stuff. Thanks so much for having me. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. If you're a listener on Spotify, be sure to leave us a comment. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang. I'm your host, Bob McMillan. Additional support this week from Pierre Bien-Aimé and Xavier Wang. Jessica Fenton and Michael Laval wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Katie Ferguson. Our development producer is Aisha El-Muslim. Chris Zinsley is the deputy editor. Lita El-Molad is our senior director of shows. and Samantha Hennig is the Wall Street Journal's head of multimedia.

23:44We'll be back Monday with a new episode. Thanks for listening.

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