The news of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitting to adultery and launching a corporate investigation caused a strong resonance on Wall Street. Since his personal fortune directly depends on the value of the technology giant’s shares, this scandal instantly led to colossal financial losses for both Huang himself and the company’s investors.
Image source: Nvidia
According to the Associated Press, Nvidia’s stock price fell about 5% in premarket trading. According to Forbes, at the opening of trading, when the shares collapsed by more than 7%, Huang temporarily lost his status as one of the ten richest people in the world – his fortune decreased by $10.3 billion. During the day, the securities were adjusted, and at the time of publication of the note, the fall was about 4.5% (about $7.4 billion in losses for Huang).
Image source: CNBC
In the Forbes billionaire ranking, he dropped from 8th to 10th place, behind Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and Larry Ellison of Oracle. The company’s capitalization fell from $4.5 trillion at closing on Friday to $4.24 trillion by mid-day trading on Monday. That has pushed Nvidia even further behind Apple, with whom it has recently been vying for the title of the world’s most valuable public company.
It is worth noting that Nvidia was the only company from the so-called “Magnificent Seven” whose shares fell both in the premarket and during main trading.
Nvidia’s board of directors said in a statement Sunday that it is forming a committee of independent directors and outside legal counsel to review all available information. At the same time, the company separately emphasized that they “have no reason to believe that national security was compromised or that classified Nvidia data was leaked.”
Against this background, US President Donald Trump spoke in defense of the head of the company. He praised Huang’s leadership qualities, but noted that he had not discussed the ongoing investigation with him.
“I consider him a worthy person. He probably has some explanation for what happened. We need to listen to his version. He has done an amazing job for our country,” the president told reporters.
Shaun Maguire, a partner at venture capital firm Sequoia, also joined in the support. In his message on Social Network X, he called Huang “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of this generation,” adding, “Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I am convinced that Jensen is essential to maintaining America’s leadership in artificial intelligence.” SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared Maguire’s publication, noting that he completely agrees with this opinion.
Let us remember that these events followed a resonant publication in The New York Times. Earlier, the publication reported that, according to American intelligence, Jensen Huang maintained close relations with Alice Huang (Alice Huang, namesake, former head of Megaspeed International, has no family ties to Jensen), a Chinese citizen whom US authorities suspect of collecting information in the interests of Beijing.
According to CNBC, Nvidia plans to report third-quarter earnings on November 17 and will hold a major conference in Washington at the end of the month.
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