Nvidia's board met late on Wednesday, 11 November, US time, to decide whether to remove Jensen Huang, the co-founder who has run the world's most valuable chipmaker for 33 years. The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to oust him, and Reuters confirmed the meeting.

As of Thursday morning in South Africa, no decision had been announced. Nvidia's shares fell about 8% in after-hours trading on the news.

The meeting marked a sharp turn. On Sunday, 8 November, the board announced an independent investigation into reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, while saying it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia's secrets were compromised and expressing confidence in him.

Huang has since admitted to an extramarital affair with a woman US intelligence alleges is a Chinese spy, and on Wednesday the New York Times reported that he also had an affair with an executive who reports to him. Under Nvidia's bylaws, the board can remove its chief executive "with or without cause" by a majority vote, and 10 of its 11 directors are independent.

Unlike many founder-led tech companies, Nvidia does not have special voting shares, and Huang owns about 3.6% of the company, so the board, not Huang, controls the decision. Replacing him would not be simple. Huang, 63, has said he has about 60 people reporting directly to him, and Nvidia has no publicly named successor.

Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm to identify potential replacements, and Semafor reported that some directors favour chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive. If the share losses hold, Nvidia will have lost about $ 600 billion (about R9.9 trillion) in market value since the investigation was announced. Analyst Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives has estimated Nvidia could be worth 25% to 30% less without Huang.

TechCrunch reported the share fall and Huang's hands-on management style. Reuters quoted Armina Rosenberg of Minotaur Capital, an Nvidia shareholder: "Losing Jensen would be a real blow." CBS News quoted Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie: "Jensen is Nvidia. And if he has done something wrong and he needs to be removed, and they have no successors, that's a terrible outcome."

Whatever the board decides, the episode shows what key-person risk looks like at the largest scale. Nvidia's chips sit at the centre of the AI boom, yet the company built up no clear successor, and its chief executive keeps dozens of people reporting straight to him. When the person at the centre becomes the problem, there is no easy way forward, and investors price that in fast.

For South African founders, the lesson is practical, not dramatic: spread decision-making, document how the business runs, and have an answer to who leads if you cannot, long before you need it.

The governance contrast is also worth noting. Nvidia's board can act because Huang does not control the votes, while at Anthropic, the founders will keep 51% of them after its listing. And with Nvidia shares falling alongside this month's wider AI sell-off, the uncertainty adds to the pressure on a market already nervous about AI valuations. We will update this story once the board announces its decision.

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