Nvidia Hires Ex-Federal Prosecutor Joon Kim to Lead Huang Probe as Shares Fall More Than 6% Tuesday

Since Nvidia's board announced an independent investigation into CEO Jensen Huang on Sunday, Nov. 8, the probe has gained a lead investigator, a presidential comment on an FBI inquiry, and a deeper stock sell-off.

A former top federal prosecutor runs the inquiry

The board hired the law firm Wachtell Lipton, according to a New York Times report. Joon H. Kim, a partner at the firm who previously served as acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, will lead the review.

A committee of independent directors will oversee the work with outside counsel. The board has said it has no reason to believe that U.S. national security or Nvidia's secrets were compromised, and that Huang has agreed to cooperate.

Nvidia has not said how long the review will take or whether it will make the findings public.

Trump says the FBI is investigating

President Donald Trump said Monday that the FBI is investigating Huang's affair with Alice Huang, whom U.S. intelligence officials suspect of working for Chinese intelligence. Trump also said he has spoken with Huang and believes the CEO "had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy."

That is a change from Sunday, when Trump told reporters he had not yet spoken to Huang. "I just know he's a fine person, but you never know what is going on," he said then. "I think he's an honorable guy. I think he probably has an excuse for it."

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, took a harder line. "If Jensen Huang was giving information to this individual that turns out was a Chinese spy, then yes, absolutely, I think that put national security at risk," he told reporters.

Mast said the Gang of Eight has already been briefed and another briefing is planned. He also said lawmakers are examining how Chinese companies can remotely access chips located in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. "If China has every single chip that they want, then America loses," he said.

The stock keeps sliding

Nvidia closed Monday down 4.3%, or $7.97, at $178.67 after falling as much as 9% during the session. Fox Business reported that shares were down more than 6% Tuesday as lawmakers sought a national security briefing. Shares are down about 22% over the past month.

Huang's paper wealth has followed. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is worth about $148 billion and ranks 12th, having fallen behind Walmart heirs Jim and Rob Walton. He had been 10th with $155 billion at Friday's close.

The broader tech sector was already under pressure from concerns about AI infrastructure debt and the Democratic midterm gains, which could slow data center construction.

Key-man risk and the missing successor

Huang has said he has more than 60 direct reports, a structure that keeps him at the center of decisions. No succession plan is public.

"The Nvidia board is between a rock and a hard spot. They have almost no good options. Jensen is Nvidia," said David Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School. "And if he has done something wrong and he needs to be removed and they have no successors, that's a terrible outcome."

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management compared Huang's tie to Nvidia with Steve Jobs's role at Apple. Speculation about possible replacements has included co-founder Chris Malachowsky.

Mohamed El-Erian wrote on X that "key-man risk" looms large and it is doubtful markets have priced it in. Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives called it a "black eye moment" and said there is "clearly risk that Jensen could be removed as CEO depending on the board investigation."

Nvidia's position is that Huang stays. A spokesperson told CBS News, "Jensen is committed to continuing to lead Nvidia as CEO without interruption." Spokesperson John Rizzo said, "We trust that if we were the target of a genuine threat, the U.S. government would have notified us."

The disputed claims

China rejects the allegation. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the spy narrative "entirely baseless" and "slander and smear."

Some market watchers expect limited lasting damage. Giuseppe Sette of Reflexivity said the story has a "limited impact" on Nvidia and that investors are more focused on data center spending and crowded AI positioning. Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management said the key question is whether intellectual property or sensitive information was compromised. He added that Huang's removal would leave the stock "in even tougher shape."

The stakes in the customer relationship are large. Megaspeed, the Singapore-based data center firm where Alice Huang was an executive, has bought roughly $5 billion worth of Nvidia's AI chips. U.S. officials suspected the company of steering advanced chips to China, according to the New York Times reporting that first surfaced the relationship. In late October, an Nvidia spokesperson told the Times that Huang's interactions with her "are not unusual or unexpected."

Huang has admitted he was "unfaithful" to his wife of more than 40 years. A shareholder class action from Rosen Law, filed in federal court, alleges Nvidia and Huang failed to disclose his connections to Alice Huang. Those claims are allegations, not findings.

What comes next

Three House committee chairmen asked Huang in a Nov. 4 letter to attend a closed-door briefing later this month. Kim's review, the FBI inquiry Trump described, and the congressional briefing are all open, and none has a public end date.

It is unclear whether the review can finish before investors and lawmakers force a decision on Huang's role.