Analysts warn Nvidia could lose up to $1 trillion if CEO Jensen Huang departs amid affair investigation
Analysts say Nvidia's market value could fall 20-30% if CEO Jensen Huang leaves the company following an investigation into his relationship with a Chinese businesswoman.
Analysts cautioned that Nvidia's market value could drop as much as $1 trillion if chief executive Jensen Huang were to resign or be removed amid an investigation into his relationship with a Chinese businesswoman.
Freedom Broker analyst Egor Tolmachev said the shares could fall up to 30% in such a scenario, while Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives added that the company would be worth 25% to 30% less without Huang.
Nvidia's stock fell 6.7% on Tuesday and has declined more than 11% since Monday, bringing its market capitalization to about $4 trillion and allowing Microsoft to overtake it as the world's second-most valuable company after Apple.
The company has denied that national-security interests or proprietary information were compromised by the affair. A spokesperson said Jensen’s interactions with the woman were “not unusual or unexpected.”
The woman, identified as Alice Huang, was a senior executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based technology firm and Nvidia customer that U.S. authorities suspect of helping Beijing evade export controls on advanced AI chips.
Investors filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that Nvidia made false and misleading statements about the relationship. Gene Munster of Deepwater Management, a former Nvidia shareholder, said a departure could push the stock down roughly 20%, and independent analyst Richard Windsor estimated a maximum 25% decline.
The controversy has heightened concerns about the broader AI investment climate, as Nvidia's chips power services from OpenAI and Anthropic and underpin billions of dollars of AI-related investment.