Billions lost and markets roiled. Isn't it now clear tech bros are too powerful?

Aditya Chakrabortty argues that Jensen Huang’s alleged affair with a much younger woman suspected by US officials of being a Chinese spy exposes the unchecked power of technology billionaires. The scandal reportedly erased more than $400bn from Nvidia’s value in two days, a shock that reveals how much global markets and the future of AI depend on one executive. Nvidia supplies the chips underpinning AI and has become a central player in the industry’s financing and political influence, including a reported $20m contribution to Donald Trump’s ballroom. Despite the national-security concerns, Trump took no discernible action, while Nvidia’s board initially declared that secrets had not been compromised before an independent investigation. Its slow response is further questioned because board members have longstanding ties to Huang and relatives hold senior company roles.

The column places the affair within a wider pattern of impunity among tech leaders such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, arguing that their companies are treated as too important to face ordinary accountability. It links public anger at billionaires, AI and datacentres to recent populist political gains, while contending that proposed responses such as a datacentre moratorium or wealth tax are inadequate. Chakrabortty calls for more ambitious plans, including breaking up monopolies and placing AI under public ownership. He warns that an eventual collapse of the AI investment bubble could trigger financial and political crisis, potentially followed by taxpayer-funded bailouts, and urges the left to prepare policies before that happens rather than repeat its failures after the 2008 crash.