Nvidia Sheds $343 Billion as Huang’s Job Hangs in Balance

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Nvidia rallied during regular trading Wednesday. Then came reports of a second alleged affair involving CEO Jensen Huang and a board meeting to decide whether to fire him. The stock reversed course after the bell, wiping roughly $343 billion off the chipmaker’s market value.

Nvidia closed at $173.73 on Nov. 11, up 2.9% for the day, before sliding to $159.51 in after-hours trading. That’s a drop of $14.22 per share, or 8.2%, from the closing price. For someone holding 100 shares, it meant a $1,422 drop in the value of their holdings. If the after-hours losses hold, Nvidia’s market value would be down roughly $600 billion since its board announced an investigation Sunday. That total includes Wednesday’s after-hours drop.

The New York Times reported that Huang, 63, had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, who reported directly to him. The newspaper cited five people who worked at the company. Powell and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The alleged relationship has yet to be independently confirmed.

Nvidia’s directors were meeting late Wednesday to weigh whether to remove Huang, just three days after publicly expressing confidence in him. The company had yet to announce a decision as of Wednesday evening.

The board’s Sunday investigation followed separate reporting about Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly suspected of passing information to Beijing. Jensen Huang acknowledged in an email to employees that he had been unfaithful and apologized to his family. He gave no details about the relationship. Nvidia’s board said Sunday it had no reason at that point to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised.

Huang has led Nvidia since co-founding it in 1993 and turned it into the dominant supplier of chips that power AI. With quarterly earnings due Tuesday, Nov. 17, investors now face a question that has little to do with chip sales: Who runs Nvidia if its founder is out?