Nvidia's board is preparing to remove chief executive Jensen Huang, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday evening, in a boardroom crisis that has already wiped tens of billions of dollars off the value of the world's most important chipmaker.

The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said directors could meet as soon as Wednesday to decide the future of the man who co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and built it into the centre of the artificial intelligence boom. Reuters reported that the board was meeting late on Wednesday, but as of Thursday morning no decision had been announced and Huang remained chief executive.

Nvidia shares closed the regular session on Wednesday at $173.73, up 2.9%, then fell about 8.6% in after-hours trading to around $158.76 once the report broke. The slide also dragged on Asian markets on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei down 0.7% and Taiwan's Taiex falling 2.6%, and left Apple ahead of Nvidia as the world's most valuable company.

Two relationships reported

The ouster report came about an hour after The New York Times reported that Huang had also had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare and an executive who reports directly to him. The Times said the relationship was described by five current or former employees, and that it had not seen a video said to show the pair. Neither Nvidia, Huang nor Powell has confirmed the account.

That followed Huang's admission to staff on Sunday 8 November that he had been unfaithful to his wife. One of the relationships involved Alice Huang, an executive at the Singapore data firm Megaspeed, whom American intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China. Megaspeed is Nvidia's largest customer in Southeast Asia and has faced United States scrutiny over suspected chip smuggling.

Board inquiry already under way

The board opened an independent investigation on 8 November into reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, and on 10 November the independent directors retained former acting US Attorney Joon H. Kim and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to run it. In its 8 November statement the board said it had confidence in Huang and his leadership team, and that it saw no evidence national security or company secrets had been compromised. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the Journal's report, and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Succession is now the market's pressing question. Semafor reported that some directors favour naming chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive, while Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm to identify possible replacements. Nvidia has no public succession plan, and Huang has more than 50 direct reports. Analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush has estimated Nvidia would be worth about $300 a share with Huang in charge and $225 without him.

What happens next

The next fixed dates are Nvidia's third-quarter results on Tuesday 17 November, with an earnings call at 5pm Eastern time, and a closed-door briefing that three House committee chairs have asked Huang to give on 18 November. Until the board speaks, the ouster remains a report rather than a decision, and the shares are trading on the headline rather than the business. But the episode has already become a stress test for the AI trade: investors who spent the year debating whether data-centre spending can pay for itself must now weigh whether the company at the centre of it can keep its founder at the helm.