Key facts
- Jensen Huang left Nvidia as CEO over growing questions about his extramarital relationships.
- One relationship was with an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore data center company under US investigation.
- US investigators suspect Megaspeed of funneling Nvidia chips to China; Megaspeed has denied wrongdoing.
- David Reber, chief security officer for four years, said he left in August 2026 for health reasons.
- Saša Zdjelar, Reber's replacement, spent 17 years at ExxonMobil before Salesforce and ReversingLabs.
- Nvidia has not answered questions about what its security team knew, the report said.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang left the company over growing questions about his extramarital relationships, the report said, without giving the date of his departure. The questions began with an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore data center company that US investigators suspect of funneling Nvidia chips to China, and widened to reports of two separate affairs with Nvidia employees. Megaspeed has denied any wrongdoing.
The departures in Nvidia's security ranks drew little notice at the time. David Reber, who spent four years as chief security officer and seven years at Nvidia overall, stepped down in August 2026, saying he was leaving for health reasons and disclosing a diagnosis of young-onset Parkinson's more than two years earlier. His replacement, Saša Zdjelar, spent 17 years at ExxonMobil in Houston, leaving as a senior IT manager, then one year at Salesforce and several years at the cybersecurity company ReversingLabs. Zdjelar did not respond to questions about the transition or what the security team knew, and Reber also did not respond, the report said.
Nothing public connects the security role changes to the Megaspeed matter, the report said. Nvidia's top lawyer was engaged with the government's Megaspeed inquiry more than a year before the report, The New York Times reported. The Times, citing five Nvidia employees, said Huang was involved with a vice president who reported directly to him, and Reuters, citing two people, later reported a second relationship. Nvidia has not answered questions about what its security team knew.
Security specialists told the report that affairs can create vulnerabilities that foreign intelligence services look to exploit. Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired senior intelligence officer who says he has trained more than 1,000 corporate security professionals, said intelligence services collect much information through everyday conversation rather than hacking, making risks hard for security teams to identify. He said security teams are often underfunded because they do not drive revenue, and that many companies define security narrowly.
Eftimiades said what a rival intelligence service often wants is policy insight, including who is pushing to change export rules and who is the biggest blocker. He pointed to IMSI catchers, devices that mimic a cell tower so nearby phones connect to them, as one example of technology augmenting human intelligence; a basic version can cost about $1,000 and fit in a suitcase, he said. He said no one knows yet if such devices were used against Huang. The report said what Nvidia's security team knew should become clearer as the board's independent investigation and federal inquiries proceed.