Nvidia's stock dives as chipmaker's board weighs move to oust CEO Jensen Huang

Nvidia's stock price tumbled after the close of trading on Wednesday on news that the chipmaker's board of directors is preparing to oust longtime CEO Jensen Huang. 

Nvidia this week launched an investigation into Huang, who admitted to having an extramarital affair. U.S. intelligence agencies have linked the CEO to a Chinese business executive, Alice Huang (no relation), who is suspected of being an asset of China's Ministry of State Security.

Nvidia shares fell more than 8%, to $159.51, in after-hours trading. The drop continued a steep decline in the company's market value, which has sunk more than $450 billion since Nvidia announced the probe into Jensen Huang's conduct on Nov. 8.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the Nvidia board's plan to remove Huang. 

Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993, is seen in many circles as the face of the burgeoning artificial intelligence sector, with the company's advanced chips providing the critical computing resources that power frontier AI models.

Huang's exit would be a major blow for Nvidia, which lacks any obvious successors to fill his shoes, according to Wall Street analysts.

"The news is obviously negative, as Jensen is (arguably) the most prominent executive at the most prominent company sitting at the center of the world's most important industry — someone who foresaw the rise of AI years before ChatGPT arrived and made sure the firm he founded would be prepared to capitalize on it," Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge said in a report.

Corporate governance experts said Jensen Huang's alleged relationship with Alice Huang appears to violate Nvidia's code of conduct. That policy highlights that personal relationships could create a conflict of interest for Nvidia, while Huang himself specifies in the code of conduct that the company's workers have a responsibility "to maintain high ethical standards."

Nvidia's code also instructs employees to ask themselves whether they could defend an action if it were made public on social media or known to colleagues. If not, the policy states, "do not proceed." 

In a message to company employees on Sunday, Huang admitted to having an affair, and he apologized to his wife and their two children, both of whom also work at Nvidia. "There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry," he wrote.