Nvidia Has Lost $1.7 Trillion in Five Weeks. The Math on What Comes Next

By Rebecca Stone

Nvidia closed Tuesday at $168.89, down 5.5% on the day and 29.4% below its record close of $239.24 on October 6 — a five-week slide that has erased roughly $1.7 trillion of market value across 24.1 billion shares. About $429 billion of that loss came in the two sessions after CEO Jensen Huang told employees on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife, in a relationship with a woman U.S. intelligence officials suspect worked for a Chinese spy agency.

For scale: Enron was worth about $68 billion at its August 2000 peak. Nvidia's two-day loss equals roughly six Enrons. The slide since October equals about 25.

The market is pricing two possibilities at once: that Nvidia may have to operate without its founder, and that Washington may close China to its chips permanently. The limits of that reading are real. Tuesday's drop came on a day the whole market fell after a hot inflation report. And the analyst who put a number on the founder risk, Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives, still puts the chance Huang is removed at about 15%.

What does Dan Ives' 30% mean in dollars?

Ives wrote Tuesday that if Huang were removed as CEO, "Nvidia is worth a lot less (25%-30%) as a company/stock," and that "Jensen is not replaceable."

He kept his Outperform rating and his $300 price target, 78% above Tuesday's close, because he expects Huang to stay.

At the top of his range, a 30% cut from $168.89 puts the stock at about $118 and removes another $1.2 trillion of market value. At 25%, it lands near $127. That is the first leg of any downside path, and the only one with a named analyst behind it.

What is China actually worth to Nvidia?

The second leg belongs to Congress. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jim Banks want their AI Overwatch Act — which would let lawmakers review and block advanced chip exports to China — attached to the defense bill in the coming weeks. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries backs the Senate's chip limits in the final bill.

The Information reported Tuesday that the network around the woman in Huang's case moved at least $7.5 billion of Nvidia hardware into China since 2023. Reuters could not verify the report.

How much revenue counts as at risk depends on whose number you accept:

• Nvidia's 10-Q for the quarter ended July 26 shows $7.9 billion of revenue from customers headquartered in China including Hong Kong, out of $96.2 billion total — about 8%.
• China was 7% of revenue in the first half of the fiscal year, 9% in fiscal 2026 and 19% in fiscal 2025, before the H20 restrictions took effect.
• The same filing says Hopper data center shipments to China were less than 1% of the quarter's $89 billion in data center revenue.

The higher number comes from a short seller. Culper Research argued in May that more than 20% of Nvidia's fiscal 2026 compute revenue was driven by China through diverted chips and Southeast Asian intermediaries — the figure behind the claim that a fifth of GPU demand comes from China. It is an allegation, not a verified finding, but it describes the same kind of diversion The Information reported. If it is right, Nvidia's filings understate what a hard export regime would cost.

What is the path to $100?

Wall Street's consensus for Nvidia's fiscal year ending January 2028 — the year investors call next year — is $15.91 a share in earnings on about $692 billion of revenue. At Tuesday's close, the stock trades at about 11 times that estimate.

The path assumes earnings fall in proportion to revenue removed and that the market keeps paying the same multiple. That assumption is generous: a company losing its founder and a market at once usually gets a lower multiple.

• Step one, Huang removed, Ives' 30%: $168.89 becomes about $118.
• Step two, China closed, on Nvidia's own 8%: next year's earnings fall to about $14.61 a share and the stock lands near $109.
• Step two on the short seller's 20%: earnings fall to about $12.73 a share and the stock lands near $95.

The path below $100 requires both events to happen and the higher China number to be true. From Tuesday's close, it is a further 44% drop.

What does that do to 1,000 shares?

Consider a retired couple, both in their late sixties, with $2.4 million in total assets — most of it in index funds inside an IRA — and 1,000 Nvidia shares in a taxable account. The position began as 100 shares bought on January 3, 2023 at $143.15, before the 10-for-1 split in June 2024. They are a scenario; any position scales from these figures.

At the October 6 peak, the shares were worth $239,240 — 10% of everything the couple owns. Last Friday they were worth $186,640. Tuesday they closed at $168,890. That is $70,350 gone since the peak, $17,750 of it since Huang's letter, $9,780 on Tuesday alone.

• At Ives' $118: the shares are worth $118,223, another $50,667 below Tuesday.
• At $109: they are worth $108,541.
• At $95: they are worth $94,578 — $74,312 below Tuesday and $144,662 below the peak.

Weighted by Ives' own 15% odds, the Huang risk alone is worth about $7,600 to this couple today. That number argues against panic and for a decision.

What is the tax on getting out?

For long-term holders, the capital gain is what keeps them in. The couple's cost basis is $14,315, so selling everything at Tuesday's close books a long-term gain of $154,575.

With $120,000 of other taxable income, the entire gain sits in the 15% federal bracket: $23,186. The 3.8% net investment income tax applies to the part of their income above $250,000, which is $24,575 of the gain, or $934. Total federal tax: $24,120, leaving $144,770 in cash before any state tax.

Against the paths, the arithmetic is stark: the exit tax is $24,120, while the next leg costs $50,667 on Ives' number and $74,312 on the full path.

Selling half changes the calculation. The gain drops to $77,288, income stays under the $250,000 line so the surtax disappears, and the tax falls to $11,593, leaving $72,852 in cash. The 500 retained shares would be worth $59,111 at Ives' price and $47,289 at the bottom of the path — a position small enough that it cannot hurt the holder.

Where does the math break down?

Ives' 25% to 30% is a judgment call, and he says the likelier outcome is that Huang stays. The Enron comparison is about size, not kind: Enron's shareholders lost everything and claimed more than $40 billion in the class action, while Nvidia's have lost 29% of a far larger company that still earns more than any company in history.

The China step treats a dollar of revenue as a dollar of earnings. Nvidia's 10-K says it was already effectively shut out of China's data center compute market, so part of the 8% is gaming and other products no export bill touches. The consensus itself can move on November 17, when Nvidia reports earnings after the close.

And the stock moves on noise: Tuesday's 5% drop coincided with a hot inflation print.

The number to watch is not the price. It is whether the board's investigation and the defense bill turn Ives' 15% into something larger.