NVIDIA Falls 9% as Board Reportedly Prepares to Oust CEO Jensen Huang

NVIDIA stock fell 9% to $158.78 in morning trading on November 12, after The Wall Street Journal reported on November 11 that the company's board is preparing to remove co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang and could meet soon to decide his fate. The sell-off is splitting the semiconductor group: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) dropped 4% to $59.95, while AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) rose 0.3% to $554.65 and Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) edged higher on expectations, per Bloomberg, that the two could pick up business displaced by NVIDIA's turmoil.

The stakes are considerable. NVIDIA sits at the center of the artificial intelligence hardware trade, and a leadership rupture at a company with no board chair, no chief operating officer and no clear succession plan carries direct execution risk for the entire AI supply chain.

What did the reports actually say?

The Wall Street Journal's November 11 report that NVIDIA's board is preparing to oust Huang is the trigger for the sell-off. The New York Times added that Huang allegedly had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, NVIDIA's vice president of health care. Congress is reportedly prepared to subpoena Huang as well.

NVIDIA's board has not confirmed any plan to remove him. The allegations surrounding Huang have not been proven.

The reports followed disclosures on November 8, when Huang acknowledged being unfaithful to his wife and NVIDIA opened an investigation into reports that he was targeted by a foreign intelligence effort involving a woman U.S. officials deemed a Chinese spy. At the time, NVIDIA's board stated it had "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised."

President Trump has entered the story as well. He has praised Huang as an "amazing guy" and an "honorable man," comments that came amid scrutiny of his own purchase of up to $5 million in NVIDIA stock.

Why does the leadership vacuum matter?

NVIDIA's governance structure concentrates unusual power in one executive. The board has no chair. The company has no chief operating officer. There is no clear succession plan in place. Huang has about 60 direct reports.

Governance experts have suggested two internal candidates as possible interim CEOs: chief financial officer Colette Kress and lead independent director Stephen Neal.

D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria warned the situation could "hasten a transition the company is not prepared for." Seaport Research Partners analyst Jay Goldberg took a different angle on the fundamentals, noting that NVIDIA is "sold out" and stating that "it's all contracted into next year, but it loses a lot of its luster."

The two quotes frame the bull and bear cases. Bulls point to contracted, committed demand. Bears point to execution risk at a company with an unusually hollow management bench beneath its CEO.

How are the chip stocks trading?

The November 12 session has produced a clear split:

• NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA): $158.78, down 9%.
• Intel (NASDAQ:INTC): $59.95, down 4%.
• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD): $554.65, up 0.3%.
• Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO): inching higher.

According to The Wall Street Journal, NVIDIA's leadership crisis is also dragging on U.S. stock futures.

The macro backdrop complicates the picture. The sell-off follows a strong November 11 session in which the S&P 500 rose 1.3% and the NASDAQ 100 climbed 2.3%. Hot inflation data has traders pricing in a December Federal Reserve rate hike as a near-certainty. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee called the latest Consumer Price Index report "borderline disturbing."

What separates NVIDIA's business model?

NVIDIA sells merchant AI graphics processors alongside networking hardware and its CUDA software ecosystem (CUDA is NVIDIA's proprietary parallel-computing platform that locks developers into its stack), and its Vera Rubin platform is now in full production. That full-stack model ties hyperscalers, AI clouds and government buyers closely to NVIDIA's roadmap — which is precisely why leadership questions carry so much market weight.

Its competitors run different playbooks:

• AMD is a fabless challenger (it designs chips but outsources manufacturing) pairing EPYC server processors with Instinct accelerators and Helios rack-scale systems, making it the closest merchant alternative to NVIDIA.
• Intel operates as an integrated device manufacturer that designs Xeon and Core processors and runs its own foundry.
• Broadcom builds custom AI chips and networking silicon for a small group of hyperscalers, a model outside NVIDIA's merchant approach.

The chipmakers are only one layer of the AI buildout. Power, cooling and networking suppliers ride the same demand wave.

What is the financial cushion?

NVIDIA's upcoming earnings report will test its own guidance. On August 26, the company disclosed that it expected Q3 FY2027 revenue of $108 billion, plus or minus 2%. That figure anchors the bull case that demand does not depend on any single executive — supply is sold out, and revenue is contracted into next year, as Goldberg noted.

The report arrives while the company faces a leadership question it cannot answer with silicon. Whether the board formally acts on Huang's future, and whom it names as an interim leader, will determine the next leg of the trade.

What comes next?

Watch for an official statement from NVIDIA's board, which could also shape how AMD and Intel trade in the near term. The bulls can point to sold-out supply and committed demand. The bears see an abrupt transition at a company without a chair or a chief operating officer disrupting execution on its product ramps. Traders may prefer smaller exposure until NVIDIA's leadership question resolves.