Nvidia Loses $470 Billion in Two Days Due to CEO's Suspicious Relationship?

Nvidia shares continued their decline today, putting the chip-making giant on track to lose more than $470 billion in market value during two trading sessions amid growing fears regarding the implications of CEO Jensen Huang's relationship with Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, whom reports suggested was a spy working for Beijing.

The Information newspaper quoted two people familiar with Huang as saying that the CEO's relationship with her facilitated the shipment of Nvidia chips to Chinese companies worth at least $7.5 billion. There is no family relation between the CEO and the businesswoman.

These reports led to increased scrutiny of governance within Nvidia, its compliance with export control laws, and its reliance on Huang's leadership, heightening investor anxiety over whether massive spending on AI infrastructure would generate sufficient returns.

Nvidia shares plunged by more than six percent after falling 4.3 percent on Monday, allowing Microsoft to surpass the AI leader to become the second most valuable company in the world for the first time since June 2025.

Bank of America analysts wrote in a note, "The debate among investors centers on whether this issue is limited to the company alone or if it will lead to restrictions and disruptions at the level of AI infrastructure."

Nvidia's board of directors launched an internal investigation on Sunday, while the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is examining whether Huang (63 years old) was the target of a foreign intelligence operation. Huang admitted to employees his betrayal of his wife but provided no details about the relationship.

The newspaper reported that Huang, in collaboration with her husband and sister, established a network of companies across China and Singapore to obtain Nvidia chips.

Among these companies is Shanghai Century Litong, a China-based firm that received "Nvidia Preferred Cloud Service Partner" status in 2023, granting it priority access to the company's chips.

The report noted that when orders for Nvidia chips subject to US export restrictions stopped, Huang exploited her relationships with the company and its distributors to secure supplies, helping transfer approximately 240,000 H100 and H200 model chips and some A100 chips to China.