Jensen Huang's Leather Jacket Was a Gift From Wife Lori, Story Resurfaces After Nvidia CEO Admits Affair

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Jensen Huang's black leather jacket, one of the best-known looks in business, is getting new attention after the Nvidia chief executive admitted to an extramarital affair. Huang has long said that many of the jackets were chosen by his wife, Lori Huang.

Huang made the admission in an email to Nvidia employees on Sunday, the same day the company's board opened an independent investigation into reports that he had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

"I owe my family and all of you an apology," Huang wrote in the email, which Nvidia later published. "I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry."

"Throughout my life, my family has given me love and support. They deserve my honesty and loyalty," he wrote. "Instead, I let them down and damaged the life we built together."

As the news spread, media in South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere pointed to Huang's past public comments about his signature outfit and the role his wife played in it.

A jacket from his wife, given away on stage

The best-known example came in July 2024 at SIGGRAPH, a computer graphics conference in Denver, during a fireside chat with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

At the end of the conversation, the two executives swapped jackets on stage in a moment that went viral. Huang gave Zuckerberg the leather jacket he had been wearing and said Lori had bought it for him to mark the conference. He joked that it was only "two hours old."

"This is worth more because it's used," Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg gave Huang a black leather jacket with a shearling lining and a large hood in return. "It's black and leather and shearling," Zuckerberg said. "It's a vibe."

Family picks the wardrobe

Huang has credited his family with his style more than once. In an April 2023 appearance on the "No Priors" podcast, he named his wife as the source of his jackets. In an October 2023 interview on HP's online show "The Moment," he said he was glad his wife and daughter choose his clothes.

The jacket has become part of his public image at major events. At Nvidia's GTC developer conference in March 2024, he wore a Tom Ford leather jacket that reportedly cost about $8,990, prompting another round of online attention to his wardrobe.

Over the years, the outfit has become shorthand for Huang and for Nvidia's rise from a graphics chip startup to one of the most valuable companies in the world, powered by demand for chips used in artificial intelligence. Fans and critics alike have turned his jackets into memes, and his keynote appearances are often judged as much for the outfit as for product news.

A marriage that predates Nvidia

The jacket story resonates partly because of how long the couple has been together. Jensen and Lori Huang met as lab partners in an introductory electrical engineering class at Oregon State University. She was 19, and he was 17. They married in 1985, eight years before Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993.

Both worked as microchip designers in Silicon Valley after college. Lori Huang later left the workforce to raise the couple's two children, Spencer and Madison, who both now work at Nvidia. She is president of the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation, the couple's philanthropic organization, which has given large gifts to Oregon State University and Vanderbilt University.

Lori Huang has not commented publicly on the affair.

Board investigation and spy allegations

Huang did not name the woman in his email. U.S. intelligence officials believe he had a romantic relationship with Alice Huang, an executive linked to Singapore-based Megaspeed, an Nvidia customer, according to reports by The New York Times and the Financial Times. The officials believe she was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security.

China's Foreign Ministry rejected the allegations. Spokesperson Guo Jiakun called them "entirely groundless, speculative and intended to smear and malign China."

Nvidia's board said a committee of independent directors, working with outside counsel, will run the review. "While the Board has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, the Board's inquiry will examine all available information," it said.

The board said Huang will stay on as chief executive and is cooperating fully. In his email, Huang said he supports the investigation.

"Leading NVIDIA is the privilege of my life," he wrote. "I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence."

He ended his apology with a message to his family. "To my wife and family: I love you. I know an apology cannot undo what I have done," Huang wrote. "I hope our family will heal and that, over time, I can earn back your trust."

Market reaction

Investors reacted sharply. Nvidia shares fell about 8% on Monday as the company faced questions about the outlook for a business closely tied to its founder. Analysts have long said that Huang personally sets Nvidia's long-term strategy, which raises the stakes of the board's investigation.

President Donald Trump, who has worked closely with Huang on chip and trade policy, defended him. Trump called Huang "an honorable guy" and said he had "done an amazing job for our country." Some members of Congress have said they intend to examine the matter.

For now, the leather jacket that turned Huang into a recognizable figure well beyond Silicon Valley is being viewed differently. A wardrobe once presented on stage as a light family story is now part of the coverage of a personal and corporate crisis, as Nvidia waits for its board's findings.