EXPLAINED | Jensen Huang Said Sorry. What Happens After a Public Apology?

“There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.” Jensen Huang wrote those words to Nvidia employees on November 8. The co-founder and CEO of the US chipmaker admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife. He also had a message for colleagues and shareholders. “My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust.”

Huang asked for privacy for his family, promised to earn back his colleagues’ confidence and pledged to cooperate with an inquiry into reports that a foreign intelligence operation had targeted him. Each audience could ask something different of him. Five apologies from the past two decades show who gets to make those demands and what they can actually enforce.

What happened at Nvidia?

The board put independent directors in charge of an inquiry, with help from outside lawyers. It said it had no reason at that point to believe that US national security or company secrets had been compromised. It also expressed confidence in Huang, who remains CEO. Huang’s email admitted infidelity and did not name the other person. Whether anyone obtained sensitive information is a question the inquiry still has to examine.

What did Tiger Woods say his wife needed from him?

To see how he behaved over time. On February 19, 2010, Woods appeared at the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse in Florida and admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife, Elin Nordegren. “I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated,” he said. He apologised to his family and to people who had supported him, and said he had sought treatment. When it came to his marriage, he said the conversations with his wife would stay private.

The couple announced their divorce that August. Woods’s golfing career continued and he won the Masters again in 2019. The scoreboard could tell the public how far he had come as a golfer. The couple decided the future of their marriage in private.

What did Steve Smith take responsibility for?

For his role in the 2018 Cape Town ball-tampering scandal. Television cameras caught Cameron Bancroft with the sandpaper. That day Smith said the leadership group knew about the plan. Cricket Australia later found that Smith knew of the potential plan, failed to step in and directed Bancroft to hide the evidence. At Sydney Airport on March 29, Smith described what happened as a failure of his leadership and apologised.

Cricket Australia had already handed him a 12-month playing ban. Smith said he would accept the sanction. When he returned to Test cricket at Edgbaston in 2019, he made 144 and 142 in the two innings. He had to serve the ban before he could make that comeback.

Why did Mark Zuckerberg have to answer to US senators?

Because Facebook users’ information had reached a political consultancy. A quiz app collected information about people who used it and some of their Facebook friends. You could lose control of your data even if you had never taken the quiz. Data from the app went to Cambridge Analytica. Zuckerberg told US senators on April 10, 2018, that Facebook had taken too narrow a view of its responsibilities. “And it was my mistake, and I am sorry,” he said.

The US Federal Trade Commission reached a $5 billion settlement with Facebook in 2019 over allegations that it violated an earlier privacy order. The settlement required the company to establish an independent privacy committee on its board and made Zuckerberg personally responsible for certifying compliance. He stayed in charge. A regulator had imposed specific duties he could be held to after the hearing was over.

Why did Will Smith apologise a second time after the Oscars?

His first apology left out Chris Rock. On March 27, 2022, Smith slapped Rock onstage after the comedian made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Smith went on to win best actor for King Richard. In his acceptance speech, he apologised to the Academy and his fellow nominees. The following day, he addressed Rock by name in a public post and said, “I was out of line and I was wrong.”

Smith resigned from the Academy. Its board barred him from attending Academy events, including the Oscars, for 10 years. He kept his award. The Academy could decide who attended its events. Rock could decide how to respond to the apology.

What made Ramalinga Raju’s apology different?

It told Satyam’s board where to look in the accounts. On January 7, 2009, the Indian IT company’s founder and chairman disclosed that ₹5,040 crore of the cash and bank balances shown in its books did not exist. He also said Satyam had reported a quarterly operating profit of ₹649 crore when the actual figure was ₹61 crore. He apologised to employees and other stakeholders and resigned.

Satyam later agreed to pay $10 million to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission charges. In 2015, a Hyderabad trial court convicted Raju and sentenced him to seven years in prison. A sessions court granted him bail and suspended the sentence pending his appeal. The letter had made it possible for investors and regulators to ask where the money was supposed to be. The courts had to decide what the evidence established.

What can Nvidia’s board find out?

It can examine whether anyone gained access to company information, whether any business decision was affected and how Nvidia responded to the reports. The board has given no deadline for its inquiry. The first date on the calendar is November 11. Three US House committee chairs have asked Huang to respond by then to a request for a private briefing on November 18 about his contacts with Alice Huang, a former executive at a chip customer, and Nvidia’s safeguards against espionage.