Nvidia’s stock dipped roughly five percent in pre-market trading this morning, potentially wiping $225 billion from its $4.5 trillion valuation, after CEO Jensen Huang’s statement on November 8 that he was “unfaithful” to his wife. Huang’s statement has been directly tied to reports that the CEO fell victim to a “honeypot operation,” after allegedly having an affair with Megaspeed executive Alice Huang.
Pre-market trading numbers are rarely reflective of how a stock price will fluctuate once the American markets open, but we do have a sliver of confirmation that Nvidia is in for a bit of a beating once pre-market hours close at 9:30 am E.T.: Nvidia’s shares have dropped by 4.5 percent on the German stock exchange.
It’s been a rough month for the AI and semiconductor stock market in general, with Samsung Electronics down 24 percent and TSMC down 12 percent over the last 30 days. However, while the likes of TSMC bounced back in the early hours of November 9, investors seem less “bearish” on Nvidia…and you don’t need a finance degree to figure out why.
Following the NY Times’ report that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had been targeted by a “Chinese spy plot” on October 29, the Financial Times published a separate report on November 7 stating that an internal US intelligence memo, which was “shared with a small group of top US officials,” corroborated the findings.
The internal memo reportedly stated that Huang had a “romantic relationship” with Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, who had allegedly been recruited to spy on Huang for China’s Ministry of State Security.
Nvidia’s board of directors then announced on November 8 that the company was “initiating an independent investigation” into reports of Huang’s infidelity. A statement from Huang, emailed to Nvidia employees beforehand, was published on Nvidia’s website roughly an hour later. Huang’s statement confirmed that the CEO had been “unfaithful” to his wife of 41 years, and that he would “cooperate fully” with Nvidia’s investigation. As of writing, Nvidia’s stock is down by roughly 4.7 percent in pre-market trading.