Donald Trump has never been shy about showing affection for the billionaires who back him.
Some have enjoyed a warmer seat in that circle than the man who helped advance one of the planet’s most valuable companies.
Yet even that tight bond has its limits. Trump’s latest remarks offered a glimpse of just how tangled things can become.
That man was Jensen Huang, and after 33 years atop Nvidia, the company he co-founded is suddenly acting as if it barely recognizes him.
It began with an admission no one anticipated, and it did not stop there.
Huang was a familiar presence around the president, including at a White House luncheon with technology leaders in September. So when his world began to crumble, Trump was bound to weigh in.
What he said, and what Nvidia quietly did behind the scenes, have people doing double takes. To grasp how precipitously Huang had fallen, one must first understand how high he had risen.
Nvidia produces the chips fueling much of the AI surge, and Huang, with his trademark leather jacket, became the industry’s unofficial mascot. His closeness to the White House only amplified his profile.
Huang pledged $25 million toward Trump’s White House ballroom, according to The Daily Beast.
He was among the tech leaders honored at a White House medals ceremony in October, an event Trump has repeatedly praised publicly.
That context made the next development even more jarring. Nvidia’s board accepted Huang’s resignation and named CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO.
Veteran director Harvey C. Jones was appointed as the company’s first-ever board chair, according to TechCrunch.
The path to that exit took less than three weeks, and it began with a woman who shares his surname.
On Oct. 29, reports emerged about Huang’s “close relationship” with Alice Huang, a Chinese national and executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed whom U.S. officials suspected of spying for Beijing. The two are not related. Nvidia initially described the interactions as “not unusual or unexpected.”
On Nov. 8, Huang came clean in a letter to employees. “I was unfaithful to my wife,” he wrote. “There is no excuse for what I did.” Trump continued to insist Huang should remain at the helm, calling him an “honorable guy” and adding, “I think he probably has an excuse for it.”
Then the floodgates opened. On Nov. 11, a report citing five Nvidia employees alleged Huang had also been involved with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care, who reports directly to him.
Nvidia, Huang, and Powell did not confirm the allegations. Within a day, another report claimed a relationship with a second, unnamed Nvidia employee.
But the coldest blow came directly from Nvidia itself.
Huang’s name and headshot disappeared from the “Founders” portion of the company’s website by mid-afternoon on Nov. 12, effectively erasing the face behind the AI rush from the very company he helped launch.
Trump offered further thoughts in an interview with sportscaster Stephen A. Smith. He questioned whether the woman involved might have been a spy, suggesting that this distinction could alter how people view the situation.
“He’s going through hell. I spoke to him yesterday,” Trump admitted, predicting Huang would somehow land on his feet.
“What he feels most badly about is his wife and family. That’s what he is really — that’s what he told me. I mean, in the strongest terms, he phoned me as the president. I’m the president, and he told me, ‘What I’ve done to my wife and family is what he talked about.’”
The MAGA firebrand said anyone could take Huang’s place, but locating a suitable successor would be far from simple.
Meanwhile, he already has a candidate in mind. “NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to fill his shoes – TIM COOK of Apple,” the president posted on Truth Social earlier that day. “A Legend replaces a Legend!”
There’s just one snag.
Tim Cook had already stepped down as Apple’s CEO. The role was handed to John Ternus on Sept. 1, and he became executive chairman, as Macworld reported in April.
The post didn’t win over the crowd. “Not a great idea,” commented one reader. “Apple is far behind in AI because of Tim’s leadership.”
Others revived one of Trump’s most infamous gaffes. “Would he have to change his name from Tim Apple to Tim Nvidia?” joked one user.
A fourth commented, “I don’t see Tim Cook as a plausible replacement for Jensen.” Someone else retorted, “We’re cooked.”
It isn’t the first time Trump’s praise for a tech executive has left people puzzled. In April, his rambling farewell to Cook somehow circled back to himself.
And he famously dubbed Cook “Tim Apple” during a 2019 White House meeting, a moment the internet clearly has not forgotten.
Huang’s troubles are far from finished. Three House Republican committee chairs have summoned him for a closed-door briefing about the espionage allegations, and one warned he might be subpoenaed if he declined.
For a man whose visage once epitomized the AI gold rush, his former company’s site now tells an altogether different story.
Asked whether Huang should have stepped down as Nvidia CEO, Trump said:
Well, the thing is, was the woman a spy? & I don’t know if that’s been determined yet. But if the woman was a spy, yes. If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different. Its very hard to replace him https://t.co/iGnMyAtDP7
— Wall St Engine (@wallstengine) November 12, 2026
