Take this with a grain of salt, but my guess is that the board on some level has to judge him as being so high performing that they would try to keep him as long as that doesn't cause too much PR damage to the company, or the deals get them in too much trouble with the government.

This is just a total guess, but I assume what a lot of the board want is for him to sell as much to China or indirect channels as he can get away with. So whatever these deals were that involved this woman, they probably want him to get those deals through it he can get away with it (although they wouldn't admit it).

I see this more or less as Huang doing his job. And relative to international expectations at that level of wealth, one public affair is probably not something most of the board (presumably largely male) is going to (privately) judge him for.

So if the board is investigating, I assume what they are trying to figure out is if the US government is going to do anything (probably not) or waiting to see if there is going to be some kind of public demand for him to be removed. Or it there is something likely to come out that will cause either of those things.

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avazhi 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The board is investigating because the woman he had the affair with is a Chinese spy.

Neither the board nor the US government nor investors nor the average person gives a shit about a CEO having an affair as long it doesn't compromise his ability to do his job well.

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dcrazy 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

She was also the CEO of a large customer. That sounds like it could impact his job performance.

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seanmcdirmid 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Alleged Chinese spy unless I’m reading the article wrong? A Chinese intelligence asset could mean someone who just had CPC membership in college. Not that I’m saying Alice Huang isn’t a spy, I just would want more information before deciding.

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skippyboxedhero 2 hours ago | parent [-]

She was being monitored by the CIA, who believed she was a spy.

Also, just to be clear here: the story is that Jensen was also going to Taiwan to meet with this person who was helping Alibaba evade sanctions, when Jensen met with this person Alibaba reps were always there, and in the US Jensen was making media appearances saying that sanctions on China had to be lifted.

Bear in mind that multiple people at Supermicro were charged for allegedly smuggling servers to China, and that the reason Megaspeed is being investigated is for effectively the same thing. Jensen denied he had anything to do with Supermicro, it is going to be much harder to say the same thing here.

I don't think the affair itself is necessarily related to the direction this will shortly take.

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seanmcdirmid an hour ago | parent | next [-]

There is a huge difference between smugglers and spies though. Profit motive is all you need to be a smuggler, you don’t need espionage or anything else, you definitely don’t need a handler in zhongnanhai.

	▲	m10i 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Profit motive is all you need to be a smuggler, you don’t need espionage or anything else What you need to be a smuggler is to avoid prison. When one side is fully aware that you are a smuggler that they can rat on to the other side whenever they want, even a child could blackmail you. So that's one (fairly realistic imo) pathway from smuggler -> to espionage. This is a hypothetical anyways.

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anonymous908213 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> She was being monitored by the CIA, who believed she was a spy.

MLK Jr. was being monitored by the FBI and CIA, who believed he was a Communist.

	▲	TychoCelchuuu an hour ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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dannyw 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Chinese spy can mean everything from “sell us more GPUs to China or I leak our affair” (which I think NVDA would be very happy with - they’ve already admitted to chip diversion, and their senior execs have been arrested for the same) to trade secrets being given to Huawei.

IMHO, I’m speculating, but I think the affair could’ve happened first, and then the MSS got involved for access and blackmail.

There is, after all, statistically a high correlation with rich billionaires and infidelity…

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noitpmeder 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's unfortunate how it's perfectly rational for a board to want their CEOs doing just enough fraud/backchanneling/cosying-up-to-suspect-world-leaders to maximize shareholder value, as long as they're not getting caught/... in ways that overall minimize shareholder value.