Nvidia Boss Sued While the Powerful Close Ranks

Nvidia lost about $190 billion in market value on Monday, and the first people to sue over it weren't the powerful. They were a retail investor named Mark Kistenmacher, who filed a class action in a California court two days ago accusing Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang of deceiving shareholders about Huang's affair with Alice Huang, a woman news reports say is suspected of working for Chinese intelligence. Shares fell $7.97, or 4.3%, on Monday. They were down again Tuesday before the opening bell.

The complaint seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial. It wants to represent anyone who bought Nvidia stock between October 9, when The New York Times first reported the pair socializing in Taiwan, and November 8. Had investors known the truth, it says, they wouldn't have bought at "the artificially inflated prices that they did, or at all."

Who Had the Information

Here's the timeline, and it's worth reading slowly. Per The New York Times, in late 2025 Trump was briefed on intelligence about the relationship and didn't act. In spring 2026, a secret memo circulated among policymakers warning that Alice Huang was a spy for China's Ministry of State Security; Secretary of State Marco Rubio supervised its drafting. The public learned nothing until October 29, 2026, when the Times reported the relationship.

On that day, Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said, "Jensen's interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected. Meetings with customers are part of a CEO's job." He added that "if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know." Nvidia also said its compliance team had checked and determined Megaspeed, Alice Huang's Singapore-based company, wasn't doing anything illegal. The complaint calls those statements misleading, since they came while Huang was having the affair.

Meanwhile, the Times reported Megaspeed bought more than $4.8 billion of Nvidia chips over the past two years and rented computing power to Alibaba and other Chinese companies. A Commerce Department official who visited its Malaysia data center in 2024 found Nvidia equipment still in boxes. The U.S. and Singapore each began investigating Megaspeed in October 2025, one year ago. Bloomberg reported that Nvidia's head lawyer, Tim Teter, contacted Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler about whether the Trump administration played a role in detaining Alice Huang. No improper influence has been established.

What They're Calling "Accountability"

Huang apologized on November 8 in a letter to employees, also posted as a press release: "I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did." He wrapped it in patriotism: "I love our country and our company... I am proud and grateful to be an American." Nvidia's board announced an investigation overseen by independent directors assisted by outside counsel. Its verdict arrived before the inquiry did: the board said it had "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised." Huang stays on as CEO during the review.

Trump said Monday that Huang "will be in good shape," and the day before, "I just know he's a fine person, but you never know what's going on." Huang was on Air Force One with Trump in May for the Beijing summit with Xi Jinping. Three House committee chairs requested a closed-door joint briefing, which means whatever Congress learns will be learned out of public view. Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said they're interested in investigating further. Interested.

Amy Kremer of the advocacy group Humans First said Huang should resign: "He is compromised." The allegations haven't established that Huang knowingly shared information or that Nvidia's technology was compromised.

Who Pays

The $190 billion didn't vanish from Huang's account alone. It left every pension fund, retirement account and small investor holding the stock. The shareholders suing say they bought at inflated prices while executives and officials sat on what they knew. Officials were briefed long before the public. The market got a press statement.

The remedy on offer is a court case, a board-run probe and closed-door hearings: the company investigating itself, the government briefing itself, and ordinary people left holding the shares.