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.
Just to be clear, alleged spy, and working for a foreign government which wants to do a tremendous amount of incredibly profitable business with the company. Which he should be carefully weighing against the very real legal risks when the US government doesn't want that business to happen. And if he can't remain impartial, the board should be concerned about whether he can make the right decision for shareholders about that risk/profit.
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.
She was also the CEO of a large customer. That sounds like it could impact his job performance.
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…
What OP is implying is that the Board likely implicitly condoned any effort Jensen would take to make sales to China including making underhanded deals that look like honeypot operations but may as well have been a double honeypot operation. The implication is that the outcome of said affair was actually good for Nvidia. You imply that the interests of Nvidia and the US government and by extension the US public are aligned. That’s a citation-needed level assumption. Nvidia just wants to make money. The government hopefully has different interests.