Nvidia shareholders are paying a price: its shares fell about 7% before the US market opened, extending a week in which Nvidia has lost about $600 billion in market value.
For 33 years, Nvidia and Jensen Huang have been inseparable. He co-founded the company in 1993, has been its only chief executive, and became the face of the AI revolution in his trademark leather jacket.
On Wednesday night, US time, the board he helped build met to decide whether to remove him.
Nvidia’s directors gathered to discuss Huang’s future, according to Reuters and CNN, which cited people familiar with the matter. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the board was preparing to oust him. By Thursday evening in India, Nvidia had not announced any decision.
A five day saga
On Sunday, Huang told staff in a memo that he had been unfaithful to his wife. The woman involved is a Chinese businesswoman whom US intelligence officials suspect of spying for Beijing.
That day, the board opened an independent investigation into whether Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, and said it still had confidence in him.
By Wednesday, that confidence had evaporated.
China has denied the spying allegations, calling them baseless. President Donald Trump has defended Huang but said he had not discussed the matter with him.
What it has cost shareholders
The share price tells the story of investors’ rising alarm.
Nvidia closed at $186.64 on Friday, 6 November. It fell 4.3% on Monday and 5.5% on Tuesday as the scandal broke. On Wednesday, it rebounded 2.87% to $173.73 as strong results from AI cloud company CoreWeave lifted chip stocks.
But as the news of the scandal escalated, the shares slid about 8% after hours, to around $160 in overnight trading, and were down about 5% to 7% before the US market opened on Thursday.
Including that slide, Nvidia has lost about $600 billion in market value this week, according to Reuters, more than the entire value of most listed companies in the world. At around $161, the stock would be about a third below its record close of $239.24 on 6 October (our calculation). It has fallen more than 20% in a month.
Several Wall Street firms have cut their ratings or price targets this week, a rare event for what had been one of the market’s most widely recommended stocks.
Can the board really remove him?
Yes, and fairly easily. Huang owns about 3.6% of Nvidia and has no special voting shares. Nvidia’s bylaws let directors remove the chief executive, with or without cause, by a majority vote. The board has 11 members, all independent except Huang. Removing him as CEO would not remove him from the board, which would require a shareholder vote.
The bigger problem is what comes next. Huang has said he doesn’t believe in succession planning, and Nvidia has no obvious number two. Business and law experts have suggested chief financial officer Colette Kress as a possible interim chief executive.
The ripple effects
The turmoil is spreading through the AI trade. Europe’s technology index fell about 1.3% on Thursday morning, and Asian markets slipped. Rivals moved the other way: AMD and Broadcom rose about 3% to 4% before the US open, as some investors bet that customers may spread their chip purchases more widely.
For Indian investors, the exposure is both direct and indirect. Many hold Nvidia through international mutual funds, Nasdaq-100 index funds or overseas brokerage accounts. And the AI sell-off has been one reason foreign investors have poured money into Indian shares this month, buying more than ₹65,000 crore in eight sessions. A prolonged crisis at Nvidia could keep that rotation going, while a quick, orderly succession could steady AI stocks and pull some money back.
The next fixed date is 17 November, when Nvidia reports quarterly results. By then, it may have a new leader. Either way, its reckoning has already begun, and investors will be watching for an answer to a question that seemed unthinkable a week ago: what is Nvidia worth without the man who built it?
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