Stocks climb on tech gains; Nvidia falls 8% after hours as its board reportedly prepares to oust Huang

A rally in the session, a reckoning after the bell

US stocks rose sharply on Wednesday 11 November, led by technology shares, as an upbeat report from CoreWeave revived confidence in the artificial-intelligence trade. The S&P 500 rose 1.31% to 7,619.38, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.60% to 25,466.19, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.49% to 52,486.49. The S&P 500 technology sector rose 2.7%, and the Philadelphia semiconductor index jumped 5.7%.

Nvidia, the company at the centre of the AI boom, gained 2.9% in the regular session, recovering some recent losses. Then, after the closing bell, the shares fell about 8% after the Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia’s board was preparing to oust chief executive Jensen Huang after he had two extramarital affairs, including one with a woman US officials believe is a Chinese spy. The board was preparing to meet as soon as Wednesday to decide his future, the Journal said.

What did the Journal and the Times actually report?

Two reports, minutes apart on Wednesday evening, changed the story. The New York Times reported first that Huang had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice-president of health care, who reported directly to him, citing five people who worked at the company. The Times said the pair were filmed showing affection at a San Jose hotel in March. Minutes later, the Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to remove Huang, citing people familiar with the matter, and that directors could meet as soon as Wednesday. The Journal tied the move to two affairs: the relationship with Powell and an earlier one with a woman US officials believe is a Chinese intelligence asset.

The reports landed four days after Huang admitted in a letter to staff on Sunday 8 November that he had been unfaithful to his wife, apologised for violating their trust, and said he supported an independent investigation and would cooperate fully. That affair involved Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive, according to the Journal. The New York Times and the Financial Times had reported in October that US intelligence agencies concluded the woman was passing information to Beijing; China’s foreign ministry has called the claim unsubstantiated.

On the same Sunday, the board opened an independent investigation into whether Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence operation, while stating it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia’s secrets were compromised. On Tuesday 10 November, the board’s independent directors hired Joon H. Kim, a former acting US attorney, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to run the inquiry. Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Reuters said it could not immediately verify the reports. No decision on Huang’s future has been announced.

The market context matters. Tech shares had been sold off since the US midterm elections last week, in which Democrats took control of Congress, amid worries about AI regulation and the sustainability of the rally. CoreWeave, in which Nvidia holds a 12.8% stake, finished up 24.7% after strong third-quarter results, revenue up 168%, and said it expected to become profitable in 2028. Nvidia reports third-quarter results on Tuesday 17 November, after the close.

What no report has established yet

Nothing published so far establishes whether the board will remove Huang, or when. The Journal reported preparations and a possible meeting, not a decision, and the board has given no public sign of its intentions beyond its statement of confidence in Huang on 8 November. Whether the investigation finds that company secrets or national security were compromised is unknown; the board has said it has no reason to believe so, but the inquiry is days old and no findings have been released.

Nor is it established that the woman at the centre of the allegation is a spy: the claim rests on US officials’ reported assessment, which Beijing denies, and no evidence has been made public. The full circumstances of the relationship with Powell, and what the board knew and when, are also unreported. And there is no named successor: Huang, who co-founded Nvidia 33 years ago, has said he does not believe in succession planning.

Why one boardroom now moves the whole AI trade

Nvidia is the world’s second-most-valuable listed company and the supplier of the chips on which almost every major AI system trains. Its shares had already fallen 27% from their early-October peak by Wednesday’s close, and 9.5% across Monday and Tuesday alone. When the board of a company that large is reported to be weighing the removal of its founder, the question is not only about one man’s conduct but about who can run the machine he built; and markets hate unanswered questions about succession.

The timing compounds the stakes. Nvidia reports earnings on 17 November, the event investors have awaited to reprice the AI sector after a month of selling. The board’s inquiry, the shareholder suit filed in San Jose on 10 November, and the closed-door briefing three House committee leaders have requested from Huang all converge on the same week. Beyond the company, the affair has become entangled with the US-China technology rivalry: the allegation that the chief executive of America’s most strategic chipmaker was the target of a foreign intelligence operation is now a matter for Congress, not only for a boardroom.

How a personal scandal became a market event

On Wednesday morning, the question was whether the AI trade could recover from its post-midterm sell-off; CoreWeave’s results answered it, and the rally was broad, the MSCI world index rose 1.12%, Europe’s STOXX 600 gained 0.7%, and Asian technology shares had rebounded. By Wednesday evening, the question had changed entirely: whether the most important company in the trade would keep its chief executive. The AI boom has always rested on a narrow foundation, a handful of chipmakers, cloud providers and customers; and Nvidia’s dominance made its founder the load-bearing figure of the whole structure. A governance shock at Nvidia is therefore not a single-stock event; it is a repricing of the assumption that the structure is stable.

That is why the after-hours moves spread beyond Nvidia. CoreWeave, which had soared 24.7% in the session, slid 8% after the bell. Rivals rose, AMD and Broadcom up about 4% and 3%, as traders bet a weakened Nvidia could mean share gains elsewhere. And the macro backdrop did not pause: hotter-than-expected US inflation data on Tuesday has cemented expectations of a Federal Reserve rate rise next month, with the bond market closed on Wednesday for Veterans Day. The market that greeted Thursday was being asked to price a governance crisis, a monetary tightening and a technology rivalry at once; with the season’s most important earnings report still six days away.

What the after-hours slide sets in motion

The first consequence is the calendar: the board’s meeting, the investigation’s pace and the 17 November earnings report now form a single countdown, and every leak between now and then will move the stock. The second is legal: the shareholder suit filed in San Jose alleges investors were misled about the national-security questions around Huang, and its progress will shape what the board can say in public. The third is political: three House committee leaders have asked Huang to appear for a closed-door briefing, and prediction markets already put the odds of his departure by year-end above 70%. The fourth is commercial: customers and rivals are recalculating, AMD and Broadcom rose after hours for a reason, and a prolonged leadership vacuum would redraw the map of the AI supply chain. The fifth is the precedent: boards everywhere will read this week as a lesson in what happens when a company has no succession plan.

What decides Huang’s future now?

Three things decide it. The board’s meeting and whatever it announces; the findings of the Wachtell Lipton investigation; and the earnings report on 17 November, which will show whether the business is carrying the scandal or the scandal is carrying the business. Watch also for any statement from Huang himself, for the House committees’ briefing, and for the first trading session after the board acts.