The Price of Trust: Huang’s Exit, NVIDIA’s US$493-Billion Slide—and What the Numbers Actually Prove
NVIDIA’s founder is out after reports of multiple affairs. Investors have lost hundreds of billions in market value during the turmoil—but blaming one scandal for the entire stock and crypto rout does not survive an audit of the dates.
PRC editorial cover using NVIDIA Taiwan’s May 31, 2016 photograph of Jensen Huang, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Cropped, darkened and overlaid with typography; no endorsement implied. Source and licence links appear below. This is archival photography, not a photograph of the scandal.
November 13, 2026 · By Justin Plosz · Canada · United States · Global markets · Business · 11 min read read
A personal scandal became a corporate crisis. The price tag needs a separate investigation.
SANTA CLARA / TORONTO — The man at the centre of the reports is **Jensen Huang**, NVIDIA’s co-founder and, until November 12, its chief executive. The company has confirmed his immediate resignation as president, CEO and director, naming finance chief Colette Kress interim CEO and Harvey C. Jones its first-ever board chair. That leadership change is established by NVIDIA’s own announcement, not merely by a viral post. [NVIDIA’s statement](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-ceo-transition)
The personal conduct needs more careful wording. Reuters reports that Huang acknowledged an affair in a November 8 statement without naming the woman. The agency subsequently reported allegations involving Alice Huang, NVIDIA health-care executive Kimberly Powell and a second, unnamed employee. These are not interchangeable categories of evidence: an admission, attributed reporting about other relationships and allegations of espionage must not be presented as though they were all findings in a completed investigation. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/technology/former-nvidia-ceo-huang-had-relationship-with-second-employee-sources-say-2026-11-12/)
The financial question is just as important: **how much did this cost investors?** A substantial valuation decline occurred during the scandal. But no reviewed source provides a defensible, isolated dollar amount caused solely by an affair. The honest answer is not “nothing happened.” It is that the observable market damage and the causal bill are different things. All monetary market figures below are in **US dollars**, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Read NVIDIA’s November 12 CEO-transition announcement
What is confirmed—and what remains alleged
**Confirmed by the company:** Huang has left the three positions identified in the transition announcement. Kress is serving as interim CEO while retaining her finance responsibilities, and the board is considering internal and external candidates for the permanent role. NVIDIA says its operations, customer commitments and product roadmap are expected to continue without interruption. That is the board’s stated expectation, not a guarantee of future performance. [NVIDIA](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-ceo-transition)
**Reported by Reuters:** Huang had an intimate relationship with another employee in addition to the previously reported relationships involving Alice Huang and Powell. Reuters cites two people familiar with the matter, does not name the additional employee, and says NVIDIA declined to comment. It reports that Powell, Jensen Huang and a board representative did not reply to its requests; Alice Huang could not be reached. PRC has not independently interviewed those sources. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/technology/former-nvidia-ceo-huang-had-relationship-with-second-employee-sources-say-2026-11-12/)
**Not established as a proven fact:** that Alice Huang was a Chinese spy, that she stole NVIDIA secrets, or that a specific national-security breach occurred. The BBC reports that China rejected the intelligence allegation and that the US Justice Department had not reached a conclusion about whether she engaged in espionage. It also reports NVIDIA’s position that it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. Suspicion and investigation are not conviction. [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmq5vd1wdgz6o)
Archival photograph: Jensen Huang at Computex Taipei, May 31, 2016. Photo: NVIDIA Taiwan, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0; resized for publication. This is not a November 2026 photograph.
Reuters: the additional relationship report and responses sought
The US$2.7-trillion question: the dates do not support blaming the earlier crash on this story
The huge sell-off being recalled needs a date and a defined market. **Reuters’ November 5 closing report puts that session’s loss at US$3 trillion in S&P 500 company value**, not a verified US$2.7-trillion bill for Huang’s conduct. The S&P 500 fell 4.36%, the Nasdaq Composite 5.52% and the Dow 3.44%. Reuters described the Nasdaq’s drop as its deepest in 19 months—not the largest crash in all market history. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/business/sp-500-futures-steady-after-midterm-rally-nasdaq-lags-chip-weakness-2026-11-05)
That report identified concerns over tighter AI and data-centre regulation after the US midterms, with company earnings and interest-rate expectations also in the picture. Huang’s public acknowledgement of an affair came on **November 8**, three days after that sell-off. The chronology does not support assigning the earlier US$3-trillion market decline to that later admission. It also does not establish what every investor privately knew or believed before the reporting became public.
A different source, market universe or intraday cutoff could produce another valuation estimate. Without that source, PRC cannot verify the recalled US$2.7-trillion figure. We use the named, dated Reuters figure instead of silently treating estimates from different sessions as the same event. Our [earlier midterm-market analysis](/newsroom/markets-crash-us-midterms-dow-tsx-bitcoin-november-5-2026) covers that preceding rout.
Reuters: November 5’s US$3-trillion S&P 500 valuation loss
The loss audit: US$493 billion is a measurement, not a verdict
For a transparent short-window calculation, Yahoo Finance reported NVIDIA’s market capitalisation at **US$4.498 trillion at the previous Friday’s close, November 6**, and **US$4.005 trillion at the November 12 close**. Subtracting those rounded endpoints gives **US$0.493 trillion, or approximately US$493 billion**—about **11.0%** of the starting value. Yahoo’s own headline rounded the decline to US$490 billion. The extra digits here are arithmetic from its published endpoints, not a claim of greater underlying precision. [Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/live/nvidia-live-updates-following-jensen-huangs-resignation-as-ceo-allegations-of-a-third-affair-emerge-195535310.html)
That window is useful because it begins before the November 8 admission and ends on the resignation day. It is not a controlled experiment. Interest rates, inflation, the AI investment cycle, positioning and other news continued to affect valuations throughout the same period. “During the scandal” is supported; “caused entirely by the affairs” is not.
There is also a longer-window number. CNBC reported on November 13 that NVIDIA had lost **roughly US$1.6 trillion** over a slide beginning in early October, explicitly noting that investors had turned bearish before that week’s Huang revelations. That estimate has a different starting point and is rounded. It cannot be added to the US$493-billion window, which overlaps it. Nor should the whole longer decline be relabelled a scandal loss. [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/13/nvidia-stock-jensen-affair-ai.html)
NVIDIA’s Santa Clara headquarters, photographed August 4, 2018—not during the current events. Photo: Coolcaesar; Commons version edited by Jacek Halicki, CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized; this image remains available under that licence.
Yahoo Finance: the US$4.498-trillion and US$4.005-trillion valuation endpoints
Resignation day: a frightening opening was not the closing result
NVIDIA finished November 12 at **US$166.19**, down **US$7.54, or 4.34%**, according to CNBC’s closing report. Earlier losses reached as much as approximately 14%. The stock recovered a substantial part of that intraday fall before the close. Describing an opening plunge as the full-day outcome would materially overstate the final percentage loss. [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/12/nvidia-nvda-jensen-huang-second-affair.html)
Using the same report’s closing return and Yahoo’s rounded closing market value produces an **illustrative one-session valuation decline of about US$182 billion**: US$4.005 trillion ÷ (1 − 0.0434), minus US$4.005 trillion. That approximation assumes an unchanged share count and combines two sources’ rounded readings. It is not a separately verified exact market-cap series—and it is not an isolated estimate of damages caused by misconduct.
CNBC says NVIDIA traded below US$4 trillion for much of the day but finished just above it. That is consistent with Yahoo’s approximately US$4.005-trillion closing reading. It explains why an intraday headline about breaking below US$4 trillion can coexist with a closing report above the threshold. **Always ask: at what time?**
CNBC: November 12’s closing return and intraday recovery
Why the market cared: leadership, reporting lines and export-policy risk
The investor issue is larger than private infidelity. The public-interest questions are whether the reported relationships created conflicts, how the board handled them, whether reporting-line safeguards worked and how effectively NVIDIA can replace a founder closely associated with its strategy. Those questions can affect confidence even before investigators establish whether any technology was compromised.
NVIDIA’s own transition statement describes the task now facing Kress: maintain operations while the board searches for a permanent successor. She joined NVIDIA in September 2013, following finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft. The company’s [official biography](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/bios/colette-kress) details that experience. The board’s move changes who is responsible for executing the strategy; it does not by itself establish that demand for the company’s chips has disappeared.
The allegations concerning a suspected foreign intelligence connection bring export controls and national security into the discussion, but the evidentiary boundary matters. The BBC reports congressional requests for testimony and ongoing scrutiny. It also carries the denial of the spy allegation and NVIDIA’s statement about no known compromise. Those qualifications belong beside the accusation, not buried where readers may never see them. [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmq5vd1wdgz6o)
Colette Kress, named NVIDIA’s interim CEO on November 12, 2026. Official portrait supplied on NVIDIA’s Newsroom biography page; photo credit: NVIDIA. Resized for this editorial report; not a photograph of the transition announcement.
NVIDIA’s official biography and press portrait of Colette Kress
Crypto was hit, too. That does not make every liquidation Huang’s bill.
The Block reported Bitcoin at **US$68,408 at 12:10 a.m. Eastern on November 13**, down approximately **7% over the preceding 24 hours**. Ether was around **US$1,921**, down approximately **6%**. These are time-stamped readings, not guaranteed prices when someone later opens this article. [The Block](https://www.theblock.co/news/markets/2026-11-13-bitcoin-tumbles-below-69000-439643)
The same report, citing CoinGlass, put **24-hour crypto liquidations at US$1.47 billion**, including **US$1.31 billion in long positions**. It reported US$798 million over a shorter four-hour period. Those are overlapping windows: the four-hour subtotal must not be added to the 24-hour total. Liquidation figures describe positions forcibly closed; they are not identical to every trader’s cash loss or the fall in the total crypto market’s valuation.
Analysts quoted by The Block described several pressures: NVIDIA-related risk aversion, expectations of a Federal Reserve rate increase, and leveraged positions forced out after Bitcoin crossed price levels. That supports a multi-factor explanation. It does not justify saying one affair destroyed US$1.47 billion of crypto wealth, or adding that number to NVIDIA’s market-cap decline as though both measure the same thing.
The Block: time-stamped Bitcoin prices and CoinGlass liquidation figures
The political connection is real. This photograph is historical context.
Huang’s influence extended well beyond a quarterly earnings call. This official White House photograph shows him speaking as President Donald Trump looks on during an “Investing in America” event on **April 30, 2025**. It documents a public appearance and the political visibility of the company’s founder; it does not prove anything about the subsequently reported relationships or intelligence allegations.
The current political story is the scrutiny of sensitive chip exports and the demand for answers. The BBC reports that lawmakers requested appearances from Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. A request for testimony is an investigative step, not a criminal verdict. Neither the historical photograph nor the scale of NVIDIA’s market valuation substitutes for evidence about what information, if any, was compromised. [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmq5vd1wdgz6o)
Historical context: Jensen Huang speaks as Donald Trump watches at the White House on April 30, 2025. Official White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian, via Wikimedia Commons; US government work. Full composition retained, resized only. Not a photograph of the November scandal; no endorsement implied.
What this means for Canadian savings
A Canadian does not have to own NVIDIA directly to be exposed to a US technology sell-off. Funds tracking US or global stock indexes can hold the company, and some workplace plans and retirement accounts hold those funds. The actual exposure depends on the particular fund, its current holdings and how much of the account is invested in it. An RRSP or TFSA is an account structure, not a promise that the investments inside cannot fall.
Currency matters, too. The figures in this audit are US-dollar market values. A Canadian-dollar account’s return can differ because of exchange-rate movements, currency hedging and the rest of its holdings. We have not converted the headline into Canadian dollars using an unspecified exchange rate or claimed a loss for any individual Canadian pension plan.
For a simple illustration—not a reported customer case—US$10,000 invested in a position that fell 11% would be worth approximately US$8,900 before fees, currency effects or other transactions. That US$1,100 decline is a change in the holding’s value. A sale would realise it; a later recovery or further decline could change an unsold position. Actual outcomes depend on entry price, sale price, leverage and portfolio composition. This article is reporting and analysis, not personalised investment advice.
So how much did one affair cost? Here is the defensible answer.
**The measurable short-window change:** approximately US$493 billion in NVIDIA’s market value from the November 6 close to November 12, calculated from Yahoo Finance’s rounded endpoints. **The isolated cost caused by an affair:** not established by the sources reviewed. Those two answers can coexist. [Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/live/nvidia-live-updates-following-jensen-huangs-resignation-as-ceo-allegations-of-a-third-affair-emerge-195535310.html)
A serious attempt to isolate the scandal’s incremental market effect would need a defined event window and a counterfactual: how NVIDIA would likely have traded without those revelations, adjusting for the wider market, semiconductor peers, interest rates and other simultaneous news. Even a well-designed event study would carry assumptions and uncertainty. This article does not pretend to have performed one.
There is still an accountability story worth telling. A founder’s departure can expose concentrated leadership risk and place heavy responsibility on a board. Shareholders are entitled to ask what directors knew, what safeguards existed and how continuity will be protected. The case for asking those questions is strong enough without inventing a US$2.7-trillion charge sheet.
The next scheduled test is NVIDIA’s **November 17 quarterly results**, which the company says remain on the calendar. That will offer investors fresh business information alongside the governance crisis. It is not a forecast that the stock will recover or fall. [NVIDIA](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-ceo-transition)
Editor’s note: scope, sourcing and the picture credits
This is a **Newsroom reporting and market-loss audit**, not an independent accounting audit, a legal finding or a corporate press release issued by NVIDIA. It was prepared November 13, 2026, using the company’s transition statement and the linked reporting from Reuters, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, the BBC and The Block. The price analysis deliberately uses November 12’s completed equity session and the explicitly timed November 13 crypto snapshot; it is not a live market ticker.
PRC has not independently verified the underlying relationship allegations, interviewed the unnamed sources, established espionage or calculated an affair-only damages figure. Denials and responses above are attributed to the outlets that obtained them. PRC has not obtained a separate response directly from the named parties; they may submit a response or correction through our [Contact page](/contact), and substantiated updates will be identified. Unnamed employees are not identified here, and archival pictures are not offered as evidence of misconduct.
**Cover and Huang portrait:** NVIDIA Taiwan, Computex Taipei, May 31, 2016, via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jensen_Huang_at_Computex_Taipei_20160531a.jpg), [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). The cover adds a crop, tonal treatment and typography; the inline version is resized. **Headquarters:** Coolcaesar, August 4, 2018, Commons version edited by Jacek Halicki, via [Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NVIDIA_Headquarters.jpg), [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/); resized, with that image remaining under the same licence. **Kress:** NVIDIA’s official [Newsroom press portrait](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/bios/colette-kress), credited to NVIDIA and used to identify the interim CEO in this editorial report. **White House:** Joyce N. Boghosian / The White House, April 30, 2025, via [Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P20250430JB-0891.jpg), identified there as a US federal-government work; resized without changing the composition. No photograph implies endorsement of this coverage. No AI-generated scene or fabricated relationship photograph is used.
Key takeaways
- NVIDIA confirms Huang’s November 12 resignation and Colette Kress’s appointment as interim CEO.
- Reuters reports multiple relationship allegations; PRC has not independently verified them, and an espionage allegation is not a proven finding.
- Yahoo Finance’s rounded endpoints imply approximately US$493 billion in NVIDIA valuation lost between the November 6 and November 12 closes.
- That short-window decline overlaps a longer pre-existing slide and is not a proven dollar cost caused solely by an affair.
- Reuters’ US$3-trillion S&P 500 loss occurred November 5, before Huang’s November 8 admission.
- Crypto liquidations, stock-market valuation changes and individual realised losses are different measurements and must not be casually added together.
Frequently asked questions
- Did Jensen Huang resign from NVIDIA?
- Yes. NVIDIA’s November 12, 2026 statement confirms his immediate resignation as president, chief executive and director. Colette Kress became interim CEO and Harvey C. Jones became board chair.
- How many affairs have been reported?
- Reuters reports Huang acknowledged an affair on November 8 without naming the woman. It also reports allegations involving Alice Huang, Kimberly Powell and a second unnamed employee. PRC has not independently verified those underlying allegations; not every reported relationship is a separate public admission.
- Did an affair cost the market US$2.7 trillion?
- No reviewed source establishes that causal figure. Reuters reported an earlier US$3-trillion loss in S&P 500 company value on November 5, before Huang’s November 8 admission, amid AI-regulation and other market concerns.
- Where does the US$493-billion figure come from?
- Yahoo Finance reported NVIDIA market values of US$4.498 trillion at the November 6 close and US$4.005 trillion at the November 12 close. Their difference is approximately US$493 billion, about 11%. That is a valuation change over that window, not an isolated cost attributable to the affairs.
- Was the alleged intelligence connection proven?
- Not in the sources reviewed. The BBC reports that China denied the allegation and the US Justice Department had not reached a conclusion about espionage. It also reports NVIDIA’s position that it had no reason to believe national security or its secrets were compromised.
- Can the crypto losses be added to NVIDIA’s losses?
- Not as a reliable total cost of the scandal. Share-market valuation changes and liquidated crypto positions measure different things, and several figures cover overlapping periods. The Block also reports rate expectations and leverage as contributors to the crypto sell-off.
← Back to PRC Newsroom · Public Relations Canada
Enable JavaScript to view the interactive version of this page.