In November 2021, Jensen Huang attended the annual dinner held by the Semiconductor Industry Association in San Jose, California.
asserted
Huang → attend → Jose
That night, the trade group gave Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, its highest honour, named for Intel co-founder Robert Noyce.
asserted
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.
asserted
lockdown → arrive → March
He introduced his wife to reporters who clustered nearby, but they mainly talked to him.
asserted
they → introduce → him
By the time Huang received the award, two hours had passed.
asserted
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.
asserted
leader → walk → topics
Throughout, Lori Huang remained in the background.
asserted
Huang → remain → background
For more than 40 years, Lori Huang has been by Jensen Huang’s side as he built his fledgling chip start-up into one of the most valuable companies in the world.
asserted
he → build → world
Nvidia’s success turned Jensen Huang into an international business star.
asserted
success → turn → star
His face is on sweaters, his signature leather jackets have become collectors items and his net worth has soared to nearly $US150 billion ($219 billion).
asserted
worth → become → billion
By contrast, Lori Huang stayed far from the spotlight.
asserted
Huang → stay → spotlight
That changed this week, when Jensen Huang, 63, revealed that he had had an affair with an executive identified by the US government as a Chinese spy.
asserted
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.
asserted
who → share → limelight
The crisis deepened on Thursday amid allegations of a second affair and reports the company’s board is considering ousting its chief executive and founder.
asserted
board → deepen → executive
This week’s bombshell news had implications for US national security and the economy.
asserted
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.
asserted
that → make → market
It also has ramifications for his personal life.
asserted
It → have → life
Huang’s admission has fuelled speculation about the fate of his 41-year marriage with Lori Huang, 64.
asserted
admission → fuel → Huang
She is president of the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation, which had $US9 billion ($13.1 billion) in assets as of 2024, including $US6 billion in fresh funding that year.
asserted
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 about $US5 billion worth of Nvidia shares.
asserted
that → own → shares
Lori Huang joins a small group of tech titan spouses who have had to grapple with public infidelity.
asserted
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.
asserted
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.
asserted
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.
asserted
she → stand → leaders
She has not promoted her philanthropic work in interviews or on the conference circuit.
asserted
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.
asserted
who → say → News
That added further intrigue to the political and economic consequences of the affair, Rush noted.
asserted
Rush → add → affair
“Bezos and Gates didn’t have this dynamic, where the relationship could move markets and have this global fallout,” he said.
uncertain
he → have → fallout
Nvidia declined to comment and Lori Huang did not respond to a request for comment.
asserted
Huang → decline → comment
(China has rejected the espionage claims.
uncertain
China → reject → claims
Alice Huang, the Chinese executive accused of spying for Beijing, has not responded to requests for comment.)
asserted
Huang → accuse → comment
She met Jensen Huang as one of a handful of women studying engineering at Oregon State University in the early 1980s.
asserted
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.
asserted
he → persuade → date
He later called meeting her “the most important, single event of OSU, and of my life”.
asserted
He → call → life
After the pair graduated and married, they moved to Silicon Valley to work as microchip designers.
asserted
they → graduate → designers
Both were known as gifted engineers.
asserted
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.
asserted
he → work → Yorker
But the couple struggled to find the right childcare, according to The Thinking Machine a biography of Jensen Huang.
uncertain
couple → struggle → Huang
Just before he co-founded Nvidia in 1993, Lori Huang gave up her career to raise their children, Spencer and Madison.
asserted
Huang → co → children
…and 20 more, not listed.
The Aporia
