Jensen Huang faces probe with Nvidia earnings 8 days away, stock wobbles
Nvidia has been down 22% from its October peak even before Huang admitted to the affair
Dubai: Nvidia shares fell as much as 4.2 per cent in overnight trading on November 8 after CEO Jensen Huang admitted being unfaithful to his wife. The board has launched an investigation in to the alleged affair. The stock was trading 3.7 per cent lower on Robinhood’s platform, before publishing this report.
Huang chose to address the issue to his staff in a memo. “There is no excuse for what I did,” he wrote. Reports have identified the woman as a suspected Chinese spy. Nvidia says it has no evidence that US national secrets or internal company information were compromised.
The selloff comes at a time when the stock is already under heavy pressure. Nvidia has now posted five straight weekly losses, starting from a $233.95 close on October 2. It lost 8.76 per cent last week, its worst since April 2025. On November 5, the stock took a beating, falling as much as 9.3 per cent to $181.60, its worst day since January 2025. This came close on the heels of the Democrats sweeping the midterm elections and fears that they could bring tougher AI and data-centre rules, which drove a sector-wide rout.
Market analysts seem divided on how this incident will impact the stock going ahead. Many see that with no immediate successor, the board is likely to take its time and investigate thoroughly. Many see no long-term hit to value, but expect portfolio managers to trim positions in the coming weeks. According to one Bloomberg report, President Donald Trump has supported Huang staying on.
What has happened so far
The Times reported last month that U.S. intelligence agencies had discovered that Jensen Huang had developed a close relationship with Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and chip buyer. It was later determined that she was feeding information directly to Beijing. The two, even though share the same last name, are not related, according to the Times.
Alice Huang was previously a television reporter in China before becoming a top executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed, which has become one of Nvidia's biggest customers in Southeast Asia. Megaspeed bought more than $4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips over the past two years, according to the Times.
Nvidia, the most valuable company in the world, has topped Wall Street’s earnings forecasts again and again over the past three years, as its advanced chips became the core hardware behind AI. The Santa Clara, California-based firm posted quarterly profits of $59.69 billion in August.
The next test arrives soon. Nvidia reports earnings on November 17, and analysts expect pointed questions on the investigation.
