Nvidia shares fall 5.52% to $168.80 amid board investigation
Key Facts
Nvidia shares fell 5.52% in Tuesday’s session, November 10, and closed at $168.80, according to The Motley Fool, as fallout intensified from the company board’s investigation into a matter involving CEO Jensen Huang. The decline came as the company faced scrutiny over Huang’s alleged relationship with a woman said to be an agent of the Chinese government. The Associated Press said U.S. President Donald Trump had stated that the FBI was investigating the matter, adding that Huang told him he did not know the woman was a spy. Nvidia announced that on November 10 its independent directors had retained John H. Kim, the former acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to lead the investigation announced Sunday. The board said Huang supports the review and is committed to cooperating with it.
The board said the information available to it gave no reason to believe that company secrets or U.S. national security had been compromised. It added that it was reviewing the available information and expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team, while saying it would provide further updates as appropriate. The statements put the investigation on an internal review track, while the board has not announced a final conclusion on the allegations. The Associated Press said Trump reported that Huang told him he did not know the woman was a spy. The matter remains surrounded by allegations under investigation, and the board’s statement did not make a final judgment on the facts.
The case extended into the courts after a retail investor filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Nvidia and Huang, accusing the company and its CEO of misleading investors about Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang and its potential national security implications. The suit seeks to represent shareholders who bought the company’s shares between October 9 and November 8. The Associated Press reported that the complaint was filed Monday in a California state court and ties the start of the period to the date of the New York Times’ first report on the two parties’ socializing in Taiwan. The period the suit seeks to cover ends on November 8, the day Nvidia announced it had opened the investigation. The agency also cited the newspaper as saying that Megaspeed bought more than $4.8 billion in Nvidia chips over the previous two years. These allegations remain part of the complaint and press coverage, not an announced judicial finding.
The stock’s decline coincided with losses across the broader market, with the S&P 500 falling 0.38% to 7,521 points and the Nasdaq Composite slipping 0.74% to 25,066 points on November 10. The Motley Fool attributed pressure on investor sentiment to inflation data that came in higher than expected. Nvidia shares, however, fell more than both indexes in the same session, while trading volume rose to 420.8 million shares, compared with a daily average of 127.2 million shares over the three months through November 10. Reuters reported that the stock was down 6% in Tuesday trading, extending Monday’s losses amid the fallout from the case and the board investigation. The Associated Press had reported that the stock lost $7.97, or 4.3%, on Monday, wiping out about $190 billion in market value. Over the two sessions through November 10, Reuters said the company was poised to lose more than $470 billion in market value.
Reuters noted that Huang owns 3.6% of Nvidia’s shares and has dozens of direct reports, in its coverage of the concentration of leadership at the company and the absence of a clear successor. Analysts at Bank of America said the investment question is whether the fallout from the case will remain confined to Nvidia or lead to broader restrictions and disruption in AI infrastructure. They added: "We will not equate allegations with proven commercial harm." The Associated Press reported that Senator Mark Warner and Representative Hakeem Jeffries said Monday that they were interested in further investigation of the case. These positions distinguish the ongoing investigations from commercial effects that the cited statements have not established. The outcome of the board review and the course of the lawsuit remain developments that will determine the scope of the reported fallout.
Investors are now turning their attention to Nvidia’s call to discuss its fiscal 2027 third-quarter results, scheduled for November 17 at 2 p.m. Pacific time. The fiscal quarter ended on October 25, 2026, according to the company’s announcement. The results date follows two sessions of losses that press coverage linked to the fallout from the case, and comes after inflation data also weighed on U.S. indexes. The results statement and call will be the company’s next opportunity to present its financial-period results. The company’s announcement did not specify further details about the timing or content of an investigation update.