Nvidia stock falls following CEO resignation

Nvidia stocks fell sharply Thursday morning following news that founder and CEO Jensen Huang resigned following reports he was the target of a “foreign intelligence effort.”

The stock dropped 12.6% at opening Thursday, to $150.99.

The New York Times first reported Huang’s affair with a suspected Chinese spy last month. On Sunday, Nvidia’s board announced an investigation, and Huang issued a statement to employees posted on their website, admitting to the affair.

The AI chip supplier is the second highest valued company in the world, behind Apple and ahead of Microsoft, Google and Amazon. Its total market capitalization is estimated to be more than $4 trillion.

Founded in 1993, Nvidia started selling stocks to the public in 1999 at a value of four cents a share. The company’s focus was graphics processing units, or GPUs, for video gaming.

The value of the company didn’t take off until the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. At that time, the value of a share was about $17. Now, the bulk of its revenue is made from data centers.

Nvidia stock already took a tumble last week, dropping 10% last Thursday. It was the worst day for major stock indexes since April 2025, according to Yahoo Finance. The declines impacted Nvidia along with other AI chipmakers. On Monday, Nvidia stock dropped following weekend reports about the company’s investigation into the CEO’s affair.