Nvidia shares fell in out-of-hours trading on Monday after an internal investigation into whether CEO Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort put his future at the AI chipmaker under scrutiny, Reuters reported.
The investigation, announced on Sunday, followed a media report that Huang had a close relationship with a Chinese businesswoman who allegedly passed information to Beijing. Huang told Nvidia employees he had been unfaithful to his wife, without disclosing details of the relationship.
Perpetual futures on the Hyperliquid exchange and after-hours trading on the Blue Ocean system showed Nvidia at around 178.60 dollars a share, more than 4 per cent below Friday’s Nasdaq close of 186.64 dollars.
Chris Weston, head of research at brokerage Pepperstone in Melbourne, said the news did the stock no favours at a time of conjecture over the build-out of data centres, but that he did not think Huang would be replaced. If investors genuinely thought he was going to step down, “it would be an absolute bloodbath”, he said.
Reported relationship
The New York Times reported last month that Huang had a relationship with Alice Huang, an unrelated former executive of Singapore-based company Megaspeed. US authorities investigated her and concluded she was a Chinese intelligence asset, according to the newspaper.
Alice Huang did not respond to the New York Times when it first reported the relationship, and Reuters could not determine her location to seek comment on Monday. Megaspeed did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, a public holiday in Singapore.
Reactions
The New York Times also reported that US President Donald Trump was briefed on the intelligence findings roughly a year ago and chose not to act on them. Trump said on Sunday he had not spoken to Huang about the allegations, but called him a fine person. “I hope everything’s fine. He’s done such an incredible job,” he said.
Asked whether he should have acted on the intelligence when he was briefed, Trump said he did not think so, adding that he thought Huang was honourable and probably had an excuse.
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, called Huang an incredible human on X, but said it would be a real problem if this were more than an affair. “I am hoping for a simple affair, not a risk to our national security,” he added.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk agreed with a post by Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, which said Huang had done something “incredibly dumb” that was bad for America but that he was irreplaceable for the country’s AI leadership.
Cancelled visit to Seoul
Madison Huang, Huang’s daughter and an Nvidia executive, cancelled a planned visit to Seoul for an Nvidia conference that was due to begin on Monday, according to companies she had been scheduled to meet. She had planned to visit South Korean AI startup Rebellions and hold a question-and-answer session with Kakao Mobility.
Rebellions said the events were cancelled due to “unavoidable internal circumstances at Nvidia”. Nvidia AI Day Seoul, a two-day event expected to draw about 2,000 participants to discuss physical AI, agentic AI and infrastructure, will go ahead as planned, according to South Korean media. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Impact on suppliers
Shares in Nvidia’s key Asian chip suppliers rebounded on Monday after last week’s selloff of AI-related stocks. TSMC jumped 6.5 per cent, while Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix climbed 2.9 per cent and 4.7 per cent respectively.
Analysts said a prolonged investigation or internal review could delay Nvidia’s investment decisions or product launches, with broader implications for the semiconductor industry.
Ryu Young-ho, a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said rivals including Advanced Micro Devices could attract greater attention in the short term, potentially putting Samsung, which has close business ties with AMD, in the spotlight. He said Nvidia’s products would be hard to replace, limiting the potential impact, although shipments to China could face further delays depending on how the situation develops.
South Korea’s deputy science minister said on Monday the government expected no disruptions to contracted deliveries of Nvidia graphics processing units.
(Reuters)
