Jensen Huang and Lisa Su are cousins — specifically, first cousins once removed. The AMD chief executive and the former Nvidia chief executive share Taiwanese roots and eerily parallel careers, yet they did not meet until well into their professional lives. This article explains exactly how they are related, what that means in practice, and what their relationship looks like today.
American top CEO resigns over affair with suspected Chinese spy
Su and Huang are first cousins once removed, according to Taiwanese genealogist Jean Wu, who laid out the family tree for CNN. In Western terms, they are first cousins once removed, which refers to cousins separated by a generation.
The two are first cousins once removed — Huang's mother is Su's grandfather's sister. This means the family connection skips a generation: Lisa Su's maternal grandfather and Jensen Huang's mother were siblings. Their children, including Su's mother and Huang, were first cousins. Lisa Su is therefore the daughter of Huang's first cousin.
An Nvidia spokesperson confirmed that Huang was related to Su as a distant cousin through his mother's side of the family.
The relationship is best understood as a three-generation chain. According to work by financial journalist and family heritage expert Wu Jiajin, Huang's mother and Su's maternal grandfather both hail from the Luo family of Tainan.
