Jensen Huang on Thursday resigned as president and chief executive of Nvidia, after he admitted to having an affair with an executive at a major client firm whom US authorities suspected of providing intelligence to China.

Chief financial officer Colette Kress was appointed as interim chief executive, with former Synopsys chief executive Harvey Jones named as Nvidia’s first-ever board chair.

Huang’s resignation came after Nvidia’s board met late on Wednesday to discuss his future with the company.

Affair with second Nvidia employee

Huang had admitted to the affair with Alice Huang, or Huang Le, a Chinese citizen, in a statement on 8 November, without naming her.

Earlier this week the reported that Jensen Huang had had a second affair with an executive who reported to him.

Reuters named the executive as Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice-president of health care.

The news service reported on Thursday that Huang had also had an intimate relationship with a second Nvidia employee, citing two people familiar with the matter, without naming the person.

Nvidia’s shares plunged in early trading on New York’s Nasdaq exchange on Thursday, before recovering most of their losses.

Huang’s resignation creates uncertainty for the company that he co-founded, but industry watchers said the board is likely to have considered it a necessary step to move forward.

“The uncertainty of what would have come out next is probably the thing that would have hurt Nvidia, but also the market broadly for a longer period of time,” Bret Greenstein, chief AI officer of global consultancy West Monroe, told Associated Press.