Jensen Huang after Nvidia: Will he ever be a CEO again?

[SINGAPORE] At 63, Jensen Huang may no longer have it in him to start or lead another tech company, speculates Stephen Witt, who wrote Huang’s best-selling biography The Thinking Machine in 2025.

Here for the Singapore Writers Festival, Witt says: “In the time that I was with him, I saw him slow down just a step. That’s just age. It’s time. It happens.”

Witt worked on the book over several months, speaking with Huang as well as over 200 employees, customers, rivals and friends. The book built a picture of a brilliant, demanding workaholic who had made Nvidia the centre of his life.

“But I just don’t know if he can be a CEO again or if he wants to be a CEO again,” Witt tells the festival audience in his keynote speech at Victoria Theatre. “I think his motivation might be shot after this.”

Huang’s next task will probably be more personal: trying to save his marriage. Witt says: “I think he will beg his wife not to divorce him.”

Although Huang had lovers, including businesswoman Alice Huang and Nvidia’s vice-president of healthcare Kimberly Powell, his love for his wife was genuine, Witt suggests.

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“Jensen talked about his wife all the time. All the time. He praised her constantly,” Witt says. “He never overlooked that sacrifice she made (leaving engineering to raise their two children). He acknowledged it constantly in conversation.”

At the same time, “Nvidia consumed him, it was his life”, Witt adds. “I can see him having almost an identity crisis now… and he may reassess everything. I can see a world where Jensen leaves and just does philanthropic giving, believe it or not.”

Jensen never “forgave Elon”

The biographer’s doubts about a comeback coexist with considerable admiration for the abilities that make Huang so difficult to replace.

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“Jensen’s a world-class computer scientist. He’s a world-class deal maker. And he’s a world-class ops guy.”

Witt describes how Huang could draw an exploded diagram of a graphics chip from memory, explain what each component did and cost, and identify the various suppliers to call for a better price.

“He didn’t know anything about business. He just knew about microchips. But he educated himself. He re-engineered himself to be the CEO of the company.”

In an anecdote from Witt’s book, retold at the festival, Huang challenged an Nvidia executive with a Masters in Business Administration to name his three favourite books on pricing. The man could not name one, so Huang supplied three.

“I want you to read these three books. And when you’re done, we’ll continue this conversation,” he told the executive.

Even Huang’s public charisma, Witt suggests, had been painstakingly developed. He recalls watching Huang anxiously rock back and forth backstage before a small presentation, making bad jokes to those around him – despite already being able to command a stadium.

“I can’t sleep at night whenever I have to go on stage,” Huang later told Witt, who tells the festival audience: “He uses that fear of failure and shame and guilt as fuel.”

During a question-and-answer session moderated by tech writer Grace Chng, an audience member asks if Huang could work with Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

According to news agency Anadolu, Musk had earlier responded to a suggestion that he should hire Huang by writing on X: “That would be an honour” – without actually announcing a formal offer.

But Witt offers a bleakly comic forecast: “Those guys would last together about one week. That would be a titanic ego death match. It could be a reality show. They could sell tickets to it.”

He adds: “Jensen temperamentally cannot work for another person. He cannot have Elon Musk be his boss. They have a long and contentious relationship.”

In 2019, Tesla replaced its in-car driving computer developed by Nvidia with its own hardware. “I don’t think Jensen ever completely forgave him,” Witt says.

What else is he hiding?

Speaking candidly about Huang’s tendency to lose his temper with executives, Witt says: “He did it to me. He yelled at me for 20 minutes… And I was writing his biography. I don’t work for him.”

Witt says Huang created different characters for himself to build the company: the scary boss, the charismatic showman, the generous employer who once tipped a waitress “ten US$100 bills or US$1,000”.

“These characters that he played were taking over his identity,” Witt says. “And he no longer had any control over which one arrived or was present.”

Witt says even Huang’s political ascent was the result of a character reinvention. “He can adapt himself to the needs of the moment in this chameleonic way, get what he needs, get what he wants.”

He cultivated US President Donald Trump partly to preserve Nvidia’s access to China. But that access, in Witt’s view, antagonised administration officials who favoured tougher restrictions on China.

Witt calls it “a power play from Marco Rubio”, the US secretary of state. Rubio, a prominent China hardliner, oversaw an intelligence memo concerning Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang.

Rubio had briefed Trump in May about the affair, but Trump didn’t act, says Witt.

“So Marco Rubio took it to The New York Times and showed it to them instead. And that is how this story broke. The people who broke this story were the White House reporters at the Times. They did not cover Nvidia, like all of us Nvidia chumps over here trying to break the story. They got leaked classified intelligence.” 

Witt also thinks the revelations about Huang’s private life may extend beyond the three women reported so far: “I suspect there are more women. I’d be shocked if there weren’t.”

In Witt’s reading, Nvidia’s directors had to weigh the value of keeping Huang – an undoubtedly formidable leader – against the prospect of further damaging disclosures.

“I think the board knows that there’s more skeletons out there coming. It may be worse than it looks right now.”

Singapore Writers Festival continues till Nov 22. Visit www.singaporewritersfestival.com for more information