Nvidia shares drop after hours amid meeting over CEO Jensen Huang’s future

Shares of Nvidia dropped almost 9% in after-hours trading amid multiplereports that the company’s board would meet Wednesday night to discuss CEO Jensen Huang’s future after The New York Times reported that he had a relationship with an executive who reported to him.

Nvidia’s board is meeting to address Jensen Huang’s future at the company, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. The meeting is happening Wednesday evening and the White House is aware, one source said.

The New York Times reported, citing five people who worked at Nvidia, that Huang had been involved in a relationship with a woman who reported to him, in addition to a woman who was suspected of being a Chinese spy.

NBC News has not confirmed the Times report. The Wall Street Journal first reported the board’s meeting, citing people familiar with the matter.

Huang wrote in a note to employees Sunday that he had been “unfaithful to his wife,” though he did not specify details. NBC News reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had determined that the first woman, Alice Huang, was a Chinese intelligence operative.

China has denied the allegations, calling them “purely unsubstantiated and directed at smearing China.”

Nvidia did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Wednesday.

If Nvidia’s stock drop after hours holds through Thursday’s opening bell, it would erase more than $350 billion in value.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, an expert on corporate governance and executive leadership and senior associate dean for leadership studies at Yale School of Management, hailed Huang’s contributions to the industry but said the board should move to oust him.

“Because he has lost his legitimacy to lead internally in the eyes of the company, and he’s lost his external credibility in the eyes of key constituents, including customers,” he told NBC News.

Huang is among the most important people underpinning the AI boom and the trillions of dollars of investments tech giants are pouring into it around the globe.

Nvidia chips are the cornerstone of the artificial intelligence boom, powering all of the top developers, from OpenAI to Anthropic. Huang founded the company and has been its leader since 1993, taking the graphics processing chip company from nothing to a valuation of more than $4 trillion.

On Monday, longtime chip sector analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote that removing Huang from the company could pose massive problems for the trillion-dollar firm.

“NVIDIA is not an ordinary company and Jensen is not an ordinary CEO; he IS NVIDIA,” Rasgon wrote. “The primary beneficiary of Jensen’s removal as NVIDIA’s CEO would clearly be China,” he added.

Rasgon said that the the revelations, first announced Sunday by Nvidia and Huang also had wider implications. “It brings the stewardship of one of America’s most important companies, and the architect of the US AI trajectory, under debate,” he wrote in a note.

In overnight trading, Nvidia shares were not the only to sink. Shares of chipmakers Intel, Qualcomm, and ARM Holdings also fell in after-hours trading as Nvidia dragged the entire sector lower.

As of 9:40 p.m. ET, Nasdaq futures were also lower, pointing to the losses that the U.S. tech industry was set to face at Thursday’s opening bell.

On Wednesday night, as the Nvidia board met, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Chris Coons, D-Del., announced they had written to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick with a request to preserve records as the dramatic events engulfed the company.

“We write to request that the Department of Commerce, the Department of State, and the White House preserve all documents, communications, records, and other materials regarding the export of NVIDIA’s advanced AI chips to China or to entities that may divert such chips to China.”

The top Democratic senators also requested that “all records and materials specifically related to this reported intelligence operation” regarding Huang and the Chinese business executive also be preserved.

In the coming months, Democrats will hold control of both the House and Senate, and as a result will have subpoena power.

Warren and Coons added in their letter: “This incident raises significant concerns about the federal government’s ability to effectively enforce our export controls and protect our national security.”

Lawmakers have become alarmed by the events surrounding Nvidia and Jensen Huang in recent days because Nvidia chips are effectively how the United States has, so far, led the AI revolution. Chinese President Xi Jinping recently set a deadline of 2030 for his country’s companies to catch up to or surpass the capabilities of American AI systems.

The request from the lawmakers also comes just days before President Donald Trump embarks on a visit to Asia for both the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings.

During this trip, Trump is widely expected to meet, for the third time this year, with Xi.

Earlier this week, during a press briefing with reporters at the White House, Trump was asked if Huang could accompany him on the trip as he did earlier this year on a trip to Beijing.

“I don’t know, but I’d certainly take him,” Trump said.

Allie Canal, Peter Nicholas, Monica Alba and Frank Thorp V contributed.