Nvidia shares plunge following controversy over ties with Chinese spy

Nvidia shares witnessed a decline of over 8% when trading opened in New York on Monday, 9 November 2026, although they stabilised at a drop of over 5% by afternoon. According to a report by The Hindu, this decline is due to serious allegations and controversy surrounding the company's boss, Jensen Huang. Claims have been made that Huang had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, following which the company's board has initiated an investigation.

The entire controversy began last month when a New York Times report stated that American intelligence officials had concluded that a Chinese executive linked to a Singapore-based data centre company named MegaSpeed was sending information to Beijing. This executive is named Alice Huang (Huang Lei), who has no family relation with the 63-year-old Taiwan-born Jensen Huang. According to the New York Times, Alice Huang had developed a close relationship with Nvidia boss Jensen Huang.

In a message sent to company employees on Sunday, 8 November 2026, Jensen Huang admitted that he had an affair and apologised to his family and the company staff for this. Nvidia's board will now investigate whether Huang was made a victim of a foreign espionage conspiracy.

On the other hand, China denied these claims on Monday and stated that the allegations of Jensen Huang being spied upon are "baseless". Dan Ives, a technology analyst at Yorkville Ives Investment Bank, stated that this crisis will lead to at least an inquiry by Congress and will have a negative impact on the stock for several reasons.

Patrick O'Hare, an analyst at Briefing.com, stated that investors are currently viewing Nvidia as an isolated case. He noted that the stock is being penalised for Jensen Huang's personal transgression, which has increased uncertainty, but the market does not feel that this situation will have any systemic domino effect.

Despite the fall in Nvidia shares, other technology stocks saw an improvement. A recovery was seen on Wall Street on Monday and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose by over 2%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which includes major chipmakers and AI companies, jumped by over 6%. According to Patrick O'Hare, investors were buying to take advantage of the large losses incurred in AI trades last week.

It is noteworthy that shares of chipmakers and AI sector companies declined after the Democrats' victory in both chambers in last Tuesday's US midterm elections, amid discussions that lawmakers would impose restrictions on tech companies.

Meanwhile, oil prices in global markets also declined by over 5%. This drop was due to hopes for diplomatic talks to end the war between the US and Iran. Chris Bochamp, Chief Market Analyst at the IG platform, stated that the fall in oil prices and small signs of progress in peace negotiations have supported global market sentiment.

Nvidia is a global leader in the production of chips used to run and train AI models. It is one of the most valuable companies in the world and became the first company to achieve a market capitalisation of 5 trillion dollars last year.