Nvidia employees and Silicon Valley backers are still defending Jensen Huang after his resignation, Wired reported Thursday, citing current and former workers who said few inside the company expected him to leave¹.

Wired said news of Huang's affair with Alice Huang, a businesswoman U.S. officials have described as an alleged asset of China's Ministry of State Security, first drew a muted response in the Valley and at Nvidia¹. The magazine said the resignation came after later reporting of two other alleged romantic relationships with Nvidia staffers, and left the company and the wider AI industry stunned¹.

Two current and three former employees, speaking anonymously, told Wired that rank-and-file staff at first kept to business as usual and trusted the board to investigate, but did not think Huang would actually depart¹. Wired said Nvidia's roughly 60,000 employees are loyal to a degree that its global turnover is reported among the lowest in tech, with workers describing themselves as having "green in your blood"¹.

Employees told Wired they valued that Huang, a founder who stayed 33 years, kept layoffs rare and red tape limited¹. One former employee argued that something "more sinister" must have been involved and that affairs alone should not have forced him out, Wired said¹.

Venture capitalist Antonio Gracias wrote on X earlier this week, "One mistake does not erase a lifetime of leadership and contribution in building NVDA," Wired reported¹. After the resignation, Sarah Guo wrote that a founder who spent 30 years building the company had earned a presumption he should keep leading it, Wired said, noting that post came hours before later reporting of another alleged staff relationship¹.

Wired said authorities and Nvidia's board have not formally accused Huang of wrongdoing in his dealings with Alice Huang, and that China has denied she is a spy¹. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the FBI "is looking into it," according to Wired¹. The magazine said the board has stated it does not believe Huang compromised secrets and has hired Wachtell Lipton to investigate¹.

A venture capitalist who declined to be named told Wired on Monday they put a "less than 10 percent" chance on Huang losing the job and said, "The wind's going to blow over on this"¹. Wired said the resignation left that person in shock¹.

Valley anxiety, Wired reported, still centers on whether instability at Nvidia could burst an AI bubble; analysts are less sure¹. An unnamed AI-company chief told Wired that Nvidia's backing of startups and purchases such as Hugging Face had propped up chip demand, and that a new professional CEO might not do the same, raising systemic risk¹. Wired said Nvidia shares have recently sunk to their lowest point in more than a year, with quarterly earnings due next week¹.