Nvidia Sheds $430B in Two Days as Jensen Huang Faces Calls to Resign

Nvidia has lost about $430 billion in market value in two days, as pressure grows in Washington over CEO Jensen Huang's ties to a businesswoman U.S. intelligence reportedly concluded was a Chinese spy.

Nvidia shares closed down 5.5% at $168.89 on Tuesday, following a 4.3% drop on Monday, according to Yahoo! Finance. That leaves the stock down about 9.5% since Friday's close, wiping out roughly $430 billion in market value, according to Yahoo! Finance data. The sell-off, which saw shares slide as much as 8% on Monday, has wiped out all of Nvidia's gains for 2026. The shares were up 3.8% at $175.23 in premarket trading early on Wednesday.

The independent members of Nvidia's board have retained Joon Kim, a former acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to carry out the investigation it announced on Sunday, the company said on Tuesday.

Calls for Huang to go

Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, called on Huang to step down, telling Politico late Tuesday that the risk of extortion was too great. "The potential for extortion is so tremendous that something as sensitive as Nvidia chips, I just think he's got to go," Cramer said, adding that the board's internal investigation was "fine, but not nearly enough."

Hours earlier, former National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow had urged Huang to resign on his Fox Business show. "Step down, Mr. Huang, right now," Kudlow said, adding that he was "not here to indict" Huang but that he should step aside while the investigations take place.

Cramer's committee has jurisdiction over bills that would curb Nvidia chip sales to China, including the AI Overwatch Act and the Chip Security Act, which are being considered for inclusion in the annual defense spending bill, Politico reported.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, accused President Donald Trump of failing to act after being briefed on the relationship. "What a dereliction of duty," Schumer said on the Senate floor on Tuesday, according to CNBC. "He's supposed to protect America, not China, not his friends."

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), who chairs the House Select Committee on China, said he wanted to know whether Huang shared privileged information with Alice Huang and whether he was influenced to lobby against chip export restrictions. "If it becomes less of an investigation, more of damage control, that's not going to work," Moolenaar told CNBC. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast told ABC News he was prepared to subpoena Huang unless he responded by Wednesday to a request for a closed-door briefing on November 18, the day after Nvidia reports quarterly earnings.

Not everyone in Washington wants the scandal to dominate. Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA), co-chair of the House AI task force, told CNBC that a personal scandal should not "interfere" with the policy debate over chip exports to China.

Trump has said the FBI is looking into the matter, and that Huang told him he had no idea the woman was a spy.

Who is Alice Huang?

Alice Huang, who also goes by Huang Le and is not related to Jensen Huang, worked in banking and investment management in China before becoming the controlling shareholder of Singapore-based Megaspeed in March 2023, according to a Reuters review of corporate records and filings.

Megaspeed, which Nvidia lists as a cloud partner, has drawn U.S. scrutiny over whether it helped Chinese firms obtain export-controlled Nvidia chips, but there has been no public finding that it broke the rules, Reuters reported.