Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO After Spy Scandal, Sending Bitcoin Below $72,000 and AI Stocks Reeling

Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang resigned on November 12 as president, chief executive and board member after 33 years, effective immediately, following reports of multiple extramarital affairs including one with Alice Huang, a Singapore businesswoman whom US intelligence agencies suspect of gathering information for Beijing. Reuters separately reported that Huang had an intimate relationship with a second Nvidia employee, a direct subordinate, bringing the total number of relationships disclosed to three within five days. CFO Colette Kress, a 13-year company veteran who joined from Cisco and Microsoft, was named interim CEO while retaining her finance role, and Harvey C. Jones was appointed as the company's first ever board chairman. Kress plans a company-wide meeting on November 18, the day after Nvidia's scheduled fiscal third-quarter earnings report.

Nvidia shares fell roughly 13 percent in early trading, pushing the company's market capitalization below $4 trillion for the first time since mid-2025 and erasing an estimated $500 billion to $600 billion in value. The stock had already lost about 36 percent from its October 2026 all-time high before Thursday's drop. AMD and Broadcom rallied as investors rotated toward Nvidia alternatives, with AMD gaining around 5 percent. Ian Buck, the creator of Nvidia's CUDA computing platform, emerged as the leading candidate on prediction markets at roughly 34 percent odds, ahead of Kress at 23 percent.

The scandal deepened into a national security crisis as it emerged that companies tied to Alice Huang invested in Chinese AI startup DeepSeek and promised to supply it with Nvidia Blackwell chips, which US export rules bar from entering China. The Justice Department launched multiple probes, including one focused specifically on Nvidia on antitrust grounds and a separate inquiry into whether Alice Huang's firms helped smuggle Super Micro products into China. Congressional pressure intensified rapidly: House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast confirmed Huang agreed to testify before Thanksgiving, while Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committee Democrats announced a formal investigation into the Trump administration's approval of Nvidia chip exports to Chinese companies. White House officials were also reported to be discussing the future of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who faces criticism for allegedly stalling curbs on chip sales to China, though a White House official said Trump retains full confidence in him. President Trump, on Truth Social, called for Apple's Tim Cook to take the CEO role, writing "A Legend replaces a Legend," though prediction markets placed the odds of Cook taking the job at roughly 5 percent.

The Nvidia shock amplified a selloff already underway in crypto markets. Bitcoin fell to a 12-week low beneath $72,000, touching $71,000 at the session's trough, extending a decline that left it down more than 8 percent over the prior seven days and more than 50 percent from its October 2025 peak. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded five consecutive sessions of net outflows totaling approximately $1.44 billion through November 11, led by BlackRock's IBIT, with a further $262.8 million leaving on November 12 alone. Over eight sessions, net outflows reached $2.22 billion, the largest such streak since July. Ethereum fell below $2,000 for the first time in nearly three months, and over $650 million in crypto derivatives longs were liquidated within 24 hours, including $222 million in a single 30-minute window. Stablecoin supply posted its sharpest 30-day contraction since June 2022, falling $14.2 billion, reducing the liquidity available to support a rally. CME FedWatch showed 100 percent implied odds of a Fed rate hike at the December meeting, adding further macro pressure on risk assets.

Amid the turmoil, Binance announced it had fully covered all $6.34 billion in customer assets lost in the exchange's earlier North Korean cyberattack, the largest crypto theft in history, using company funds. Separately, the DTCC confirmed plans to bring tokenized stocks and Treasury securities to Solana in the second half of 2027, and Visa added Western Union's USDPT stablecoin to its settlement network through a partnership with Anchorage Digital.