Nvidia shares tumble after Jensen Huang quits as CEO

Nvidia ↘ 5.25% shares fell sharply on Thursday, November 12, after co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as CEO, ending his 33 years at the company. The stock dropped as much as 14% at the open and then recovered part of the loss, which still left hundreds of billions of dollars in market value erased, Bloomberg reporting carried by Insurance Journal said. Huang's departure leaves the chipmaker at the center of the AI boom without a permanent leader five days before it reports quarterly earnings.insurancejournal.com

According to the company's filing with the SEC, Huang stepped down as president, CEO and board member effective immediately. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO and stay on as CFO while the board looks at internal and external candidates. "I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years," Kress said in the release. Longtime director Harvey Jones became the board's first-ever chair, Bloomberg reported.sec.gov+1

A week of scandal

Huang resigned after he admitted to an affair with a woman U.S. intelligence agencies believe was a Chinese asset. Then The New York Times ↘ 0.07% reported a second affair, this one with an Nvidia executive who reports to him, according to CBS News. Before Thursday, the stock had already lost 9.6% on Monday and Tuesday, and CBS reported that Nvidia was on pace to lose more than $700 billion in value since last week's close.cbsnews.com

Markets and rivals react

Nvidia was the biggest decliner in both the S&P 500 ↗ 0.19% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average in early trading, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped, NBC News Comcast Corporation ↗ 0.60% reported. The PHLX Semiconductor Index ↘ 0.55% fell 2%. A weak outlook from Nebius ↘ 16.61% added to the pressure. Rivals AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ↗ 5.45% and Broadcom ↗ 5.31% moved higher. CoreWeave ↘ 7.92%, in which Nvidia holds a stake of about 13%, slid, the Associated Press reported.apnews.com+1

Wall Street turns cautious

Analysts at Baird, Bernstein, Evercore ISI ↘ 0.11%, KeyBanc KeyCorp ↘ 0.28%, Oppenheimer ↘ 1.40%, Melius and William Blair downgraded the stock, The Times reported. Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon halved his price target to $200, and Evercore's Mark Lipacis cut his to $186 from $465, according to CNBC. KeyBanc's John Vinh said Huang's exit "represents a material increase in strategic, organizational, and execution risk." Yorkville Ives' Dan Ives lowered his target to $225 from $300.cnbc.com+1

Some investors said the business itself should hold up. "Customers buy Nvidia's computing power, software and networking ecosystem, and those advantages wouldn't disappear with its CEO," Swissquote's Ipek Ozkardeskaya told CBS News. JPMorgan ↗ 0.38% analysts warned that the national security concerns raise the risk of tighter limits on chip shipments to China, NBC News reported.nbcnews.com+1

Nvidia said it will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, as planned, with its earnings call at 5 p.m. ET, according to its filing.sec.gov