Jensen Huang’s affair puts his wife in the spotlight
Erin Griffith and Don Clark
asserted
affair → put → spotlight
In November 2021, Jensen Huang attended the annual dinner held by the Semiconductor Industry Association in San Jose, California.
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Huang → attend → Jose
That night, the trade group gave Huang, the chief executive officer of Nvidia, its highest honour, named for Intel co-founder Robert Noyce.
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group → give → Noyce
Huang arrived early with his wife, Lori Huang, and quickly headed to the bar at the pre-dinner reception, saying the event was the first time he had been out of his house since the Covid-19 lockdown began in March 2020.
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lockdown → arrive → March
He introduced his wife to reporters who clustered nearby, but they mainly talked to him.
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they → introduce → him
By the time Huang received the award, two hours had passed.
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hours → receive → award
The Nvidia leader walked onstage with a bottle of red wine and two glasses, sharing them with a moderator and taking the conversation into unexpected topics.
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leader → walk → topics
Throughout, Lori Huang remained in the background.
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Huang → remain → background
For more than 40 years, Lori Huang has been by Jensen Huang’s side as he built his fledgling chip startup into one of the most valuable companies in the world.
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he → build → world
Nvidia’s success turned Jensen Huang into an international business star.
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success → turn → star
His face is on sweaters, his signature leather jackets have become collectors items and his net worth has soared to nearly US$150 billion (S$192 billion).
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worth → become → billion
By contrast, Lori Huang stayed far from the spotlight.
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Huang → stay → spotlight
That changed this week, when Jensen Huang, 63, revealed that he had an affair with an executive identified by the US government as a Chinese spy.
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he → change → spy
In his admission, which he shared in a message to Nvidia employees, Jensen Huang apologised to his wife, as well as his two children, who both work at Nvidia, thrusting them into the limelight.
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who → share → limelight
The bombshell news had implications for US national security and the economy.
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news → have → security
Nvidia’s role as the artificial intelligence industry’s main supplier of chips makes Huang a crucial linchpin for an industry that has come to dominate the stock market.
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that → make → market
It also has ramifications for his personal life.
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It → have → life
Huang’s admission has fuelled speculation about the fate of his 41-year marriage with Lori Huang, 64.
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admission → fuel → Huang
She is president of the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation, which had US$9 billion in assets as of 2024, including US$6 billion in fresh funding then.
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which → have → funding
Of Jensen Huang’s 922 million Nvidia shares, more than half belong to a trust where he and Lori Huang are the co-trustees, according to financial filings.
uncertain
he → belong → filings
She is also the sole controller of a trust that owns around US$5 billion worth of Nvidia shares.
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that → own → shares
Lori Huang joins a small group of tech titan spouses who have had to grapple with public infidelity.
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who → join → infidelity
The list includes MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Melinda French Gates, ex-wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
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list → include → Gates
The billionaire ex-wife of a tech mogul has become such a fixture in American pop culture that it has inspired characters in The Devil Wears Prada 2 and the Maya Rudolph comedy Loot.
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Devil → become → Prada
Lori Huang’s public profile stands out among the current and former spouses of powerful business leaders because of how private she has been.
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she → stand → leaders
She has not promoted her philanthropic work in interviews or on the conference circuit.
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She → promote → circuit
“Lori is unusually modest by the standards of billionaire couples,” said George Rush, who formerly co-authored Rush & Molloy, a long-running gossip column at The New York Daily News.
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who → say → News
That adds further intrigue to the political and economic consequences of the affair, Rush noted.
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Rush → add → affair
“Bezos and Gates didn’t have this dynamic, where the relationship could move markets and have this global fallout,” he said.
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he → have → fallout
Nvidia declined to comment and Lori Huang did not respond to a request for comment.
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Huang → decline → comment
China has rejected the espionage claims.
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China → reject → claims
Alice Huang, the Chinese executive accused of spying for Beijing, has not responded to requests for comment.
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Huang → accuse → comment
She met Jensen Huang as one of a handful of women studying engineering at Oregon State University in the early 1980s.
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She → meet → 1980s
Jensen Huang was her lab partner in an electrical engineering fundamentals class, and he persuaded her to join him for a weekly study date.
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he → persuade → date
He later called meeting her “the most important, single event of OSU, and of my life”.
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He → call → life
After the pair graduated and married, they moved to Silicon Valley to work as microchip designers.
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they → graduate → designers
Both were known as gifted engineers.
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Both → know → engineers
Lori Huang worked at Silicon Graphics, a hardware and software maker, where her salary was higher than Jensen Huang’s at LSI Logic, a semiconductor company, he said in a 2023 profile in The New Yorker.
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he → work → Yorker
But the couple struggled to find the right childcare, according to “The Thinking Machine”, a biography of Jensen Huang.
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couple → struggle → Huang
Just before he co-founded Nvidia in 1993, Lori Huang gave up her career to raise their children, Spencer and Madison.
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Huang → co → children
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
