Nvidia live updates: Stock tanks after new affair allegations, board reportedly preparing to oust Jensen Huang

Yorkville’s Dan Ives has lowered his price target on Nvidia following reports that the AI chip giant’s board is working with an outside firm to identify a possible successor to CEO Jensen Huang.

“We are lowering our price target from $300 to $225 now factoring in Jensen Huang is no longer CEO of Nvidia and will likely be removed by the board over the next 24 hours,” wrote Ives on Thursday morning.

“While this is a quickly moving story, the NY Times second affair story was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the board in our view, along with what in shaping up to be a groundswell gaining major momentum on both sides of the aisle in DC to focus on Jensen, Nvidia, Megaspeed, and China chips,” he added.

The challenges for Nvidia (NVDA) are only just beginning should embattled founder Jensen Huang get ousted. The company’s board is reportedly meeting to determine if it will remove Huang as chief executive, the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday.

“In our view, what matters for the stock from here is less whether a change occurs than how it is executed,” Stifel analyst Ruben Roy said.

Here are several challenges for the legion of Nvidia investors to follow in this unusual, fast-moving situation.

The read-through of any interim CEO

Huang famously has 60 or so direct reports at Nvidia and no succession plan — at least one he has shared publicly. If Huang is ousted, longtime CFO Colette Kress could get the interim CEO tag. She is one of the most respected CFOs in the game.

However, if an interim CEO stays on for a while, it could only increase the uncertainty on Nvidia’s future.

In either outcome — Kress or an outside CEO — Nvidia’s valuation could be capped in the near term given uncertainty about who will drive the product vision Huang has set since founding in 1993.

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Wall Street is finally moving to distance itself from stricken former AI stock darling Nvidia (NVDA) given the uncertainty surrounding its embattled founder, Jensen Huang.

Oppenheimer just took the eye-opening move (at least from a stock analyst perspective) to completely remove its price target on Nvidia as the Jensen Huang clan ratchets up.. This action is usually taken on sub-$10 stocks that are highly volatile after a major negative event. Not one of the world’s largest, most important companies.

Here’s how Wall Street is reacting.

Oppenheimer’s Rich Schafer: “We are downgrading shares of NVDA and removing our price target following reports (WSJ, NYT) of founding CEO Jensen Huang’s imminent departure amidst allegations of a 2nd extramarital affair. Credible media reports circulated Wednesday evening that NVDA’s board is preparing to part ways with Huang following a widely reported relationship with an alleged Chinese spy compounded by new allegations of a relationship with an NVDA executive. This “one-two” punch appears to have forced the board’s hand. Huang’s role as the “face of AI” cannot be overstated. His uniquely skillful, forward-thinking, steady and tireless leadership has been critical to NVDA’s success in becoming the undisputed AI leader and world’s largest company. Huang is a hands-on leader with dozens of direct reports. We believe he is deeply involved in all strategic decision making. We see massive shoes to fill and no obvious successor. His departure presents a material, potentially thesis-changing event. NVDA boasts an incredibly deep bench of talent. We see risk that a Huang departure creates a ‘brain drain’ situation at the AI giant, threatening NVDA’s pace of innovation — a critical competitive advantage.”

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There was still no word Thursday morning on the outcome of an Nvidia board meeting held Wednesday to determine Jensen Huang’s future, following a New York Times report that the CEO had a second extramarital affair, this time with an Nvidia executive who reported to him.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to oust Huang, while Bloomberg reported that directors were working with an outside firm to identify potential successors and were considering naming an interim CEO.

If Nvidia’s (NVDA) board moves to oust Jensen Huang, history suggests the first day’s move won’t say much.

Yahoo Finance looked at six big companies whose CEOs left over relationships or misconduct allegations: Boeing (BA) in 2005, HP (HPQ) in 2010, Best Buy (BBY) in 2012, Wynn Resorts (WYNN) and Intel (INTC) in 2018, and McDonald’s (MCD) in 2019.

First-day reactions ranged from a drop of about 8% to a gain of nearly 9%, with a median dip of about 3%.

The year that followed was rougher. Four of the six stocks trailed the S&P 500 (^GSPC) over the next 12 months, by a median of about 12 percentage points.

The worst of the six was HP. Mark Hurd was a star operator Wall Street trusted to keep the turnaround going, and the stock lagged the market by nearly 40 points in the year after he left. Wynn Resorts, the only founder in the group, jumped on Day 1 and then trailed the market by more than 20 points.

Admittedly, sample is small, spans different eras, and has no founder of a $5 trillion company.

Jensen Huang’s immense amount of control over Nvidia, and the lack of a clear successor to take up the mantle, has placed on the chip giant a large dose of so-called key-man risk. It’s something Nvidia’s disclosed before.

Writing in its 2026 annual filing, the company acknowledged it is “highly dependent on the services of our longstanding executive team,” helmed by leaders like Huang.

“Failure to ensure effective succession planning, transfer of knowledge, and smooth transitions involving executives and key employees,” the company disclosed, “could hinder our strategic planning, execution, and long-term success.”

If Huang were to step down from his position or be removed by Nvidia’s board, the move would leave a gaping leadership hole at the top of one of the world’s most important companies.

Nvidia stock’s market value keeps dropping with every Jensen Huang update.

At its overnight low of $156.20, Nvidia had lost more than $600 billion in market value since last Thursday, by Yahoo Finance calculations. Most of that came after Wednesday’s closing bell.

Measured from its Oct. 6 record close of $239.24, the damage comes to about $2 trillion. That’s more than the entire market value of Meta (META), Broadcom (AVGO) or Tesla (TSLA).

The plunge also knocked Nvidia through a floor near $164 that had held twice in the past 14 months, in September 2025 and again in March. At the overnight low, the stock was at its lowest level since July 2025.

Watch whether Nvidia can climb back above $164. If it can’t, the old floor becomes a ceiling, and the next shelf sits near $141 to $144. That’s the pulvínulo the stock built in June 2025 before it launched higher.

In a note to investors, “Where did he find the time?” Bernstein analysts downgraded Nvidia to Market-Perform and lowered its price target from $400 to $200, following reports that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was involved in two extramarital affairs, one with an alleged Chinese spy and the other with an Nvidia executive and direct report.

“With the new allegations, it feels impossible to us for the board to keep him in the role (we have seen other CEOs in our coverage terminated for far less…). And if it turns out the board doesn’t remove him now this would clearly bring further risk as more allegations seem likely to surface from here. So now what? On the positive, the fundamentals of the business (if not the leadership) are clearly still intact with numbers that remain massive (and probably still headed higher). We don’t think the company should have huge issues operating while engaged in a search for new leadership. And (of course) the shares are almost absurdly cheap (and getting cheaper as we speak); clearly there is a lot of bad news getting priced in here. On the other hand, we find it hard to advocate stepping in here in size as there will no doubt be more allegations to come (there is a trope that says if you find two ants in your kitchen the best estimate of the total number of ants in your kitchen is not two…), both from internal issues as well as headlines related to the business, new governmental investigations etc. “

Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management, suspects Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang could be out by tomorrow morning.

Nvidia remains a ‘Strong Buy’ for Raymond James analysts ahead of the company’s quarterly results expected Nov. 17, despite fresh reports of a second affair involving CEO Jensen Huang, this time with an Nvidia vice president, according to an analyst note Wednesday.

“We doubt the distraction created by the CEO’s indiscretions alters the fundamentals,” wrote equity research analyst Simon Leopold.

“While Jensen Huang has been a stand-out CEO closely associated with the company, we argue that Nvidia is more than just its CEO. The AI evolution continues and Nvidia remains an important player,” he added.

Meg Tirrell, medical correspondent at CNN, said that Nvidia exec Kimberly Powell will no longer be on her panel tomorrow at the Milken Future of Health Summit in Washington, DC.

According to The New York Times, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Powell had an extramarital affair. Huang had earlier this week admitted to having an affair with a woman alleged to be a Chinese spy.

Deidre Bosa, host of Deidre Bosa Live, weighs in on who could succeed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang if the company’s board ousts him because of two reported extramarital affairs, one with an alleged Chinese spy and the other with an Nvidia exec and Huang direct report.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s potential dismissal is likely to roil the ranks of the world’s most valuable company — and could also reverberate through Anthropic’s coming IPO.

Nvidia (NVDA) is set to invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic through a private placement ahead of the IPO, per Anthropic’s prospectus.

Serious business tie-ups between Nvidia and Anthropic only began about a year ago, when Anthropic agreed to purchase computing capacity from Microsoft, powered by Nvidia chips.

Nvidia’s investment is set to be matched only by that of Alphabet (GOOG), which is also pegged to invest $10 billion in what is expected to be a $26 billion private placement, with the remaining $6 billion coming from a group of other Big Tech firms, including Broadcom (AVGO), Micron (MU), and Microsoft (MSFT).

Having a major anchor such as Nvidia on board for the IPO would usually give investors confidence in the strength of the offering. The recent scandal surrounding Jensen Huang could rattle that sense of security.

Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang is in the hot seat … but he may not be in the CEO seat for much longer. The company’s board is reportedly meeting to determine if it will oust Huang as chief executive, the Wall Street Journal reports.

According to the NYT on Wednesday, Huang, whose relationship with a woman alleged to be a Chinese spy has embroiled the company in scandal this week, also had a relationship with Nvidia executive Kimberly Powell, one of Huang’s 60 or so direct reports.

Here’s what we know about Powell:

• She has been working at Nvidia for more than 18 years.

• She was promoted to vice president of Nvidia’s healthcare business in 2017.

• She joined Nvidia in 2008 as a business development employee focused on higher education and healthcare. Her LinkedIn profile says the role was to, “Drive worldwide evangelism & go-to-market strategy for NVIDIA’s visual computing platforms in Higher Education & Healthcare Industries. Manage and direct imaginario teams to discover emerging markets and build strategic technology partnerships with leading universities and Fortune 100 healthcare companies.”

• She is a Boston University graduate and started her career as a hardware engineer in 1999.

• Her last post on LinkedIn came about a month ago: “Autonomous AI agents need secure sandboxes and continuous monitoring. NVIDIA Open Agent Safety Platform brings the mundial ecosystem together to build safe AI. Let’s build it together—for every industry.”

Nvidia (NVDA) stock sank 7% in after-hours trading, signaling investor concern over the latest developments surrounding CEO Jensen Huang.

The reaction came after The Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia’s board is preparing to oust Huang following reports of two extramarital affairs, including one involving a woman reportedly suspected of being a Chinese spy.

Still, some Wall Street analysts argue that a leadership change would not necessarily derail Nvidia’s underlying business.

“I think the market needs to separate leadership crisis from Nvidia’s presente business because Blackwell demand, the Rubin roadmap, networking expansion, and CUDA ecosystem were already firmly established long before this fiasco,” said Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at The Futurum Group.

“I don’t see the next 12 to 18 months of revenue suddenly disappearing if Jensen were to leave,” he added.