That the viral image showed
The image showed the Nvidia co-founder in an archival-style studded leather biker jacket with a cross on it, the kind of look made famous in Hedi Slimane’s era at Saint Laurent. It was passed around as Huang’s first public appearance since reports of his affair broke. Commenters loved it. People joked about his “bad boy arc” and CNN wrote that a fake image of Huang in a studded jacket had “taken over the internet.”
It was believable because the leather jacket really is his trademark. Huang has told CBS he owns 30 to 40 of them because “it’s nice to wear the same thing every day.” A fake that plays on something everyone already knows about a person spreads much faster than one that doesn’t.
How it was caught
HuffPost traced the image back to real Getty photos of Huang taken at a Seoul airport in June 2026, when he was wearing a slim zip-up jacket (Highsnobiety identified it as Dior), not a studded one. Then Dartmouth professor Hany Farid ran the image through Google DeepMind’s SynthID detector, which found an invisible watermark and reported that the media was “made or edited with OpenAI.”
Farid added an important warning: only a few AI tools insert these watermarks, so finding one tells you something, but not finding one proves nothing. I wrote up the full timeline, the side-by-side comparison and a checklist for spotting fakes in how the studded-jacket photo was caught by a hidden watermark.
The real scandal underneath the fake one
The jacket was a joke that landed on top of a very serious story. Huang admitted to an affair with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive whom U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly suspect of working for China. Beijing has denied any involvement. The New York Times then reported a second relationship, with an Nvidia executive who reported to him. Nvidia’s board opened an investigation on November 8, and on November 12 CNBC reported that Huang had resigned as CEO. Longtime CFO Colette Kress is now the interim CEO.
Nvidia’s shares fell more than 14% at the low on November 12 before recovering much of the drop. If you want to know how the TV crowd reacted, here is what Jim Cramer told his viewers the day Huang walked away. His short version: “It had to happen.”
Naturally, the internet also decided the stock needed a miracle cure, which is how we ended up with “Nvidia Chinese Balm” above. Rub it on your portfolio and wait. (Please don’t. It isn’t real, and neither is the price on the chart behind it.)
And with the top job open, the internet started casting replacements too. Who better to lead a comeback than the most enthusiastic man in tech, armed with a graphics card in one hand and a jar of balm within easy reach? For the record, the real interim CEO is Colette Kress, and Steve Ballmer is busy owning a basketball team.
Fake jackets you can actually buy
Here is the part that isn’t funny. 404 Media found 21 online shops selling “Jensen Huang” leather jackets that use his face to sell them. Many are faux leather for under $100, and none of them has anything to do with Huang or Nvidia. So in a strange way, my label in the top image is more honest than most of those stores.
A week of AI going sideways
The fake jacket wasn’t the only strange AI story this week. A few others worth your time:
- A Danish man is suing OpenAI. Read about the Dane who says a chatbot talked him into skipping his rent and then losing his apartment.
- Nineteen jurors in the Independent Games Festival have pledged not to vote for games made with generative AI. Here are the festival judges drawing a hard line on AI-made games.
- One of the games caught in that fight was Big Walk. The studio says AI touched well under 0.1% of its code, so here’s how little AI the Big Walk team says it really used.
- And for the hardware nerds: someone found a way to wake up an old Nvidia mining card that turns out to have an A100 hiding inside, unlocking 80 GB of memory with precisely timed voltage glitches.
My take
Huang can lose the CEO title, but he will never lose the jacket. Nvidia’s chips will keep shipping, data centers will keep getting built, and the GPUs inside them will still need power and cooling no matter who signs the cheques. If you’re curious what one of those builds actually costs, this AI Build Configurator adds up the servers, the power and the cooling for a real site in a few clicks.
Meanwhile, the lesson of the jacket is simple: when a picture perfectly confirms the breaking story of the day, check it before you share it. Reverse-search it, look for the original photo and look at who posted it first. And if a picture comes with a big red “AI-generated satire” banner, like mine, at least you know exactly what you’re looking at.
FAQ
Is the Jensen Huang studded leather jacket photo real?
No. The studded Saint Laurent-style jacket was added with AI to a real Getty photo of Huang taken at a Seoul airport in June 2026, when he was wearing a slim zip-up jacket. Dartmouth professor Hany Farid found an invisible SynthID watermark in the viral image.
Did Jensen Huang resign from Nvidia?
Yes. CNBC reported on November 12, 2026 that Huang resigned as Nvidia CEO after reports of affairs and a board investigation. Longtime CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO.
Are the Jensen Huang leather jackets sold online official?
No. 404 Media found 21 online retailers selling jackets that use his image. None is affiliated with Huang or Nvidia, and many are faux leather.
Are the images in this post real?
No. All three images are AI-generated satire made for this post and are labelled as such. Neither shows a real event, product or stock quote.
Sources: HuffPost (Nov 11, 2026), CNN (Nov 10), Highsnobiety, 404 Media, CBS, CNBC (Nov 12) and The New York Times. The reports about Jensen Huang’s relationships are based on press coverage, and China has denied involvement. This post is commentary and satire, not financial advice.
All three images are AI-generated satirical illustrations, © 2026 Kevin Katovic, all rights reserved. They do not show real events, products or prices. To license an image, email support@kevinkatovic.com.