Nvidia Board Moves to Oust Jensen Huang as Prediction Markets Price His Exit

Nvidia's board is preparing to remove CEO Jensen Huang following new allegations of an affair with a subordinate, and could act as soon as today, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The chipmaker's shares fell another 6% in premarket trading on the news. Rivals AMD and Broadcom both traded higher before the bell, as investors rotated toward competitors exposed to the same AI chip demand.

The board is expected to meet soon, the Journal reported. It is weighing whether to name an interim CEO before launching a wider search, and has already engaged an executive search firm, according to the report.

What do the prediction markets say?

Traders on Polymarket put the odds of Huang announcing his resignation or being removed by today at 52%. The odds rise to 58% by the end of Friday, 71% by Nov. 30, and 76% by the end of the year.

On the question of succession, prediction market traders favor internal candidates. Ian Buck, Nvidia's vice president of hyperscale and high-performance computing, and CFO Colette Kress each carry roughly a one-in-three chance on Polymarket and Kalshi.

Outside bets include former Apple CEO Tim Cook and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, both priced at 5%.

What are the new allegations?

The latest allegations surfaced Wednesday. Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, and Huang were seen on video being affectionate at a San Jose hotel during an Nvidia conference in March, according to The New York Times.

The video is the second affair to surface in what has become a rapidly escalating saga. Huang previously admitted an affair with Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed. U.S. intelligence agencies have identified Alice Huang as a suspected Chinese operative — the detail that transformed a personal scandal into a national security concern for a company at the center of American AI infrastructure.

That security dimension explains the market's severity. Nvidia supplies the GPUs (graphics processing units) that train and run most large AI models, and its CEO now stands accused of a relationship with a person flagged by U.S. intelligence. The combination of governance failure and counterintelligence risk leaves the board little room for a staged transition.

What does it mean for investors?

Dan Ives, one of Nvidia's most prominent bulls, cut his fair value estimate for the stock to $225 — a 25% haircut from the $300 target he assigned with Huang at the helm. The stock, in his view, "will now bake in Nvidia without Jensen going forward."

Ives did not mince words about the founder's position.

"Jensen has created a black eye moment for himself and Nvidia and now has created a spider web of complexity," Ives said.

Even at the reduced $225 target, Ives implies roughly 35% upside from current premarket levels — a reminder that the analyst's argument concerns valuation compression, not business deterioration.

Not everyone wants Huang gone. The Kobeissi Letter, a widely followed market commentary outlet, urged the board to hold fire.

"There is no clear replacement for Jensen Huang," the Kobeissi Letter said, arguing that his departure would be a net negative for Nvidia and for the AI revolution more broadly.

"It is time to pause and consult your shareholders," they added.

The tension between the two camps defines the investment stakes. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has run it for more than three decades, steering it from gaming graphics into the dominant supplier of AI compute. Traders pricing Buck and Kress at only about 33% each signal deep uncertainty about whether any insider can hold the strategic authority Huang accumulated.

Where does Jensen Huang land next?

Elon Musk has already made an offer — publicly, at least. Musk posted that it would be "an honor" to hire Huang, opening a landing spot at one of Nvidia's largest customers should the board push him out.

A Musk-Huang pairing would concentrate two of the AI industry's most consequential figures inside one empire, with implications for the competitive balance among chip buyers that currently depend on Nvidia's supply.

How are broader markets reacting?

Nasdaq 100 futures are lower after a tech rally in the previous session. Gains in other chip stocks are partially offsetting the Nvidia damage, suggesting investors see the episode as company-specific rather than a sector-wide shock — at least for now.

Treasury yields are little changed, a day after the bond market closed for Veterans Day.

Two economic releases are scheduled for today:

• 8:30 a.m. — Weekly Initial Jobless Claims
• 10:00 a.m. — October Existing Home Sales

What happens next?

The board's meeting, the executive search already underway, and Polymarket's 76% year-end odds all point the same direction: Nvidia is preparing for its first leadership change in over three decades. Whether the interim pick is Buck, Kress, or an outsider, the company that anchors the AI hardware market will enter its next phase without the founder who built it.