Vinay Menon: Jensen Huang’s Nvidia fallout proves tech billionaires make terrible husbands - Toronto Star

Carnal espionage is uncommon when your spouse works at H&R Block.

Nvidia founder Jensen Huang in January 2026. “Jensen Huang had a chance to not join this long line of bad tech bros. Alas, there are no GPUs and AI chips that can be installed inside a man,” writes Vinay Menon.

Vinay Menon is the Star’s pop culture columnist based in Toronto. Reach him via email: vmenon@thestar.ca

Lesson to women in the dating scene: stay away from tech bros.

Who knew a sex scandal might emerge from the opaque world of semiconductors? Jensen Huang is out at Nvidia, the company he co-founded in 1993 while spitballing ideas at Denny’s.

Nvidia without Mr. Huang is as inconceivable as the Virgin Group without Sir Richard Branson. Or Harpo without Oprah.

My heart goes out to Lori Huang, née Lori Mills. She married Jensen, her college sweetheart, in 1985. Then four decades and two children later, her husband sits her down to come clean. The media reports he denied? They were true. He was having an affair with alleged Chinese spy.

Carnal espionage is uncommon when your spouse works at H&R Block.

What is the deal with these tech bros who make it big? When you become the face of a global behemoth — when your net worth has more digits than a Collatz Sequence — is it just impossible to keep it in your pants? Also, how do these tech bros even find time to shag a spy or seduce an underling, another allegation that led to Huang’s resignation this week.

Look at early photos of Jeff Bezos when he was starting Amazon in his garage. He looks like Mr. Rogers’ grandson in hand-me-down chinos. If you tiptoed behind him and yelled “BOO!” he’d flinch and whimper and then meekly try to sell you a heavily discounted softback.

Bezos married MacKenzie Scott in 1993. Then a quarter century later, the two were headed to Prime Splitsville. Bezos now looks like a Bond villain who mainlines protein shakes. His affair with Lauren Sánchez was revealed by the National Enquirer, replete with racy texts and paparazzi long-shots.

That time, my heart went out to MacKenzie Scott. She is one of the most generous philanthropists alive today. She’s a good egg who just wanted to lead a quiet life of simple pleasures. She yearned for the happily ever after.

But these tech bros are not marriage material after the fame and riches.

It’s all exciting until your husband is caught on a Kiss-Cam at a Coldplay concert.

Bill Gates is another billionaire nerd turned Lothario. He was married to Melinda French Gates for 27 years. They were closing in on their Pearl Anniversary. But Bill had eyes that wandered more than Microsoft Clippy.

While Gates has denied any untoward behaviour related to his association with Jeffrey Epstein, he did confess to extramarital affairs with a Russian bridge player and a Russian nuclear physicist. Who knows, maybe he keeps an Excel chart with other conquests: Russian Borscht chef, Russian electrologist, Russian wet nurse, Russian exporter of nesting dolls with bright red lips and curvy hips.

Then there is the richest man alive. Elon Musk inhabits a deranged simulation in which the power controlling him compels him to impregnate every third woman he meets online. This guy has more baby mamas than I have shoes.

Ladies, can you imagine the domestic horrors after marrying this monster? He wants the matching towels to be embroidered with “HIS” and “NPC.” He calls you a different name every morning because he can’t remember who you are. A romantic night out is sitting on a picnic blanket in a Tesla factory and eating Taco Bell by candlelight as he lies and rage-tweets on X.

Jensen Huang had a chance to not join this long line of bad tech bros. Alas, there are no GPUs and AI chips that can be installed inside a man. The dark impulses are stealth. Then a cloak-and-dagger dalliance blows up the boardroom and triggers an international incident.

Look at Huang: What do you see? A cherubic grin and leather jacket? Now this horny Fonzie from Fraggle Rock has plunged his industry into uncertainty.

The markets are propped up by AI. Nvidia chips power about 80 per cent of the systems. Any disruption to the matrix and it could be bread lines for all of us.

Who knows what intel Alice Huang, the alleged Chinese spy in this honeypot scheme, got while cosplaying as the paramour. Did she download Jensen’s phone while he snored post-coitus? Did he reveal info that might pose a threat to national security or corporate secrecy?

Also, what is up with Alice’s husband? According to the Wall Street Journal, he was the one who introduced his wife to Jensen: “Kang Wei appeared to accept that his wife Alice Huang was in a romantic relationship and spoke openly of her closeness to the Nvidia chief.”

It’s like introducing my wife to Orlando Bloom and shrugging when they get it on.

I think we can untangle a root cause of this bad tech bro problem by sifting through Silicon Valley buzzwords: Disrupter. Visionary. Workaholic. Futurist. Force multiplier. Maverick. Rainmaker. Alchemist. Trailblazer. Iconoclast.

These traits may be fantastic in a start-up.

Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details

Vinay Menon is the Star’s pop culture columnist based in Toronto. Reach him via email: vmenon@thestar.ca