Nvidia Opens Down 13% and Falls Below $4 Trillion After Huang Exit; Harvey Jones Named Chairman

Nvidia's stock took the hit Wall Street feared when trading opened Thursday, Nov. 12, hours after CEO Jensen Huang resigned. Shares opened at $150.98, down 13.09%, according to the opening-trade data, and the company's market value fell below $4 trillion for the first time since July 2025.

The damage varied across the first minutes of trading. By 9:35 a.m. ET, the AP had Nvidia down 9.7%. Premarket, the drop was close to 10%. One tally of the opening put the loss in market value at roughly $500 billion.

A deeper hole than the headline number

The stock set a record high of $243.37 last month. After-hours trading Wednesday had it near $158.78, down 8.61% from the regular close, as word spread that the board was weighing Huang's future. The opening price is lower still.

The NYT reported Wednesday that the shares were already down about a third from their early-October peak, putting the company deep in a bear market. During last week's market turmoil, Nvidia slipped below Apple as the world's biggest company.

The stock had soared 1,722% over four years, according to the AP, against about 109% for the S&P 500.

New chairman, interim CEO

Nvidia said CFO Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while it searches for a permanent replacement. Kress has been CFO since 2013 and previously held the same job at Cisco. CNN describes her as widely seen as a top contender for the permanent job. She has less technical background than Huang.

The board also appointed Harvey Jones, a board member and former Synopsys CEO, as its first chairman. Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993, is leaving the board and holds a stake of about 3.61%, which makes him the fourth-largest shareholder.

The scandal behind the exit

The board met Wednesday after reports that Huang had a relationship with an Nvidia executive who reported directly to him. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the board convened to discuss removing him.

Huang was already under scrutiny over reports of an affair with a woman U.S. intelligence has identified as a Chinese spy, according to the NYT. The AP reports that the board announced an investigation into Huang over that relationship. CNN reports the board hired a law firm to conduct it.

Those are reported allegations. Nvidia's announcement was about the resignation, and the sources contain no public response from Huang to the claims.

Washington weighs in

House Speaker Mike Johnson called the resignation a "big and shocking development" and said Nvidia matters "not only in the US economy but for national security purposes." He said he learned of it minutes earlier while walking to the House floor.

Johnson said he is holding back judgment. "There still seems to me to be a lot of facts yet to be determined," he said, though he added that Huang "did the right thing for the company and for the country" by stepping down.

Some House members want to question Huang, Johnson said. "If that's the will of the body, that's what will happen."

The rest of the AI trade

The selling was not confined to Nvidia. At the 9:35 a.m. open, the S&P 500 was down 0.6% and the Nasdaq 0.9%, while the Dow was off less than 0.1%. By the time of a separate opening snapshot, the Nasdaq was down 1.51%.

CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through the cloud, fell 10.9%. Micron dropped 3.1%. Dell Technologies fell 8.66% and TSMC 3.73% in that snapshot.

Some rivals went the other way. Broadcom rose 5.2% and AMD 2%, which the AP says helped limit the S&P 500's losses. The AP says some Nvidia competitors held up better in hopes of a competitive advantage.

The Korea Securities Depository counted $13.6 billion in Nvidia shares held by South Korean retail investors as of Nov. 10. That is down 29% from $19.2 billion about a month earlier, the Maeil Business Newspaper reported. Those figures predate Thursday's drop.

What comes next

The board has set no timeline for naming a permanent CEO. The law-firm investigation into Huang's conduct is ongoing. Whether the House moves to summon Huang is a decision for the full chamber, per Johnson. The AP points to the second question as the one that looms over the market: how Nvidia navigates a future without him.