Donald Trump has never been shy about showing love to the billionaires in his corner.
A few have enjoyed a warmer seat in that circle than the man behind one of the most valuable companies on the planet.
But even that close relationship has its limits. Trump’s latest comments offered a glimpse of just how complicated things can get.
That man is Jensen Huang, and after 33 years at the top of Nvidia, the company he co-founded is suddenly acting like it barely knows him.
It started with a confession few saw coming, and it didn’t stop there.
Huang was a familiar face around the president, including at a White House luncheon with tech titans in September. So when his world crumbled, Trump was bound to chime in.
What he said, and what Nvidia quietly did behind the scenes, has people doing double takes. To understand how hard he fell, dive into just how high Huang was flying.
Nvidia makes the chips that power much of the artificial intelligence boom, and Huang, with his trademark leather jacket, became the industry’s unofficial mascot. His closeness to the White House only raised his profile.
Huang pledged $25 million toward Trump’s White House ballroom, according to The Daily Beast.
He was among the tech leaders honored at a White House medal ceremony in October, whom Trump has repeatedly praised in public.
That made what happened next even more jarring. Nvidia’s board accepted Huang’s resignation and tapped CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO.
Longtime director Harvey C. Jones became the company’s first-ever board chair, according to TechCrunch.
The road to that exit took less than three weeks, and it began with a woman who shares his last name.
On Oct. 29, reports surfaced about Huang’s “close relationship” with Alice Huang, a Chinese national and executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed whom U.S. officials suspected of spying for Beijing. The two are not related. Nvidia initially called the interactions “not unusual or unexpected.”
On Nov. 8, Huang came clean in a letter to employees. “I was unfaithful to my wife,” he wrote. “There is no excuse for what I did.” Trump still insisted Huang should stay on as CEO, calling him an “honorable guy” and adding, “I think he probably has an excuse for it.”
Then the floodgates opened. On Nov. 11, a report citing five people who worked at Nvidia alleged Huang had also been involved with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care, who reports directly to him.
Nvidia, Huang and Powell did not confirm the allegations. Within a day, another report claimed a relationship with a second, unnamed Nvidia employee.
But the coldest blow came from Nvidia itself.
Huang’s name and headshot vanished from the “Founders” section of the company’s website by early afternoon on Nov. 12, erasing the face of the AI boom from the very company he helped launch.
Trump had more to say in an interview with sportscaster Stephen A. Smith. He questioned whether the woman involved was a spy, saying the distinction could change how people view the situation.
“He’s going through hell. I spoke to him yesterday,” Trump admitted, predicting Huang will somehow land on his feet.
“What he feels most badly about is his wife and family. That’s what he is really — that’s what he told me. I mean, in strongest, he called me as the president. I’m president, and he called me and he said, ‘What I’ve done to my wife and family is what he talked about.'”
The MAGA firebrand said anyone could replace Huang, but finding a suitable successor would prove difficult.
Meanwhile, he already has a replacement in mind. “NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple,” the president wrote on Truth Social earlier that day. “A Legend replaces a Legend!”
There’s just one problem.
Tim Cook already stepped down as Apple’s CEO. The job was handed to John Ternus on Sept. 1, and becoming executive chairman, as Macworld reported in April.
The post didn’t exactly win over the crowd. “Not a great idea,” one person replied. “Apple is way behind on AI because of Tim’s leadership.”
Others revived one of Trump’s most famous slip-ups. “Would he have to change his name from Tim Apple to Tim Nvidia?” one user joked.
A fourth wrote, “I don’t see how Tim Cook is even remotely close to a replacement for Jensen.” Someone else fired back, “We’re cooked.”
It’s not the first time Trump’s praise for a tech boss became a head-scratcher. Back in April, his rambling send-off for Cook somehow ended up being all about himself.
And he famously called Cook “Tim Apple” during a 2019 White House meeting, a moment the internet clearly hasn’t let go.
Huang’s troubles are far from over. Three House Republican committee chairs have called him in for a closed-door briefing over the spy allegations, and one warned he would likely be subpoenaed if he didn’t agree.
For a man whose face was once synonymous with the AI gold rush, his old company’s website now tells a very different story.
Asked whether Huang should have stepped down as Nvidia CEO, Trump said: Well, the thing is, was the woman a spy? & I don’t know if that’s been determined yet. But if the woman was a spy, yes. If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different. Its very hard to replace him https://t.co/iGnMyAtDP7
— Wall St Engine (@wallstengine) November 12, 2026
