alt Hacker News> I'm fairly convinced this is either a Chinese intelligence operation to destroy one of the last bastions of US dominance or a CIA operation to install a puppet in a powerful company who is not currently entirely subservient to the will of the US government.
It's odd that you seem to consider two /entirely opposed/ hypotheses as being similar to one another. Superficially, "I'm fairly convinced [this is an intel op of some kind]" makes the two seem similar, but each comes with an implicit set of consequences, right? So it's really "I'm fairly convinced [this is supposed to be really advantageous to the west because of these suspected consequences for the west] or that it's [really harmful to the west because of these other suspected consequences]". It seems odd to suspect two highly opposed set of consequences as both being reasonably likely and thus admitting to two diametrically opposed motivations for the same act.
How is that odd?
Nvidia is incredibly valuable, in large part due to Jenson.
The US is aligned with Nvidia, but it does not have total control and so is largely beholden to its choices. Amung other things, the US is paranoid about the resource ever aligning with China (thus export controls). Jenson may refuse to cede more control.
China is misaligned with Nvidia, due to competition with the US. It will never have any control, and thus wants it removed from alignment with the US to mitigate their advantage.
Both superpowers have vast intelligence networks with a long history of causing untold human suffering in pursuit of their short-term, often meaningless goals.
Suddenly, Jenson is under attack from all angles over something relatively unrelated and meaningless to Nvidia - certainly disproportional to his role as arguably one of the most important people on the planet. Within a day, with no actual information of what happened, major media companies are calling for Jenson to be removed from his position.
This could benefit the US government, who can now get a replacement more amenable to, say, the surveillance state or more ideologically opposed to China. Destruction of Nvidia be damned, the CIA hasn't though more than 2 years ahead since the 60s.
This could benefit China, as this could cause a rapid decline in Nvidia's progress and therefore the West's ability to continue beating China - in particularly since there seems to be no one capable of filling the gap if it were to happen.