Nvidia hands the Huang inquiry to a former top Wall Street prosecutor. The harder questions lead to Singapore.
Future Times5 min read
In 30 seconds
Joon Kim of Wachtell Lipton will run the board's investigation as Nvidia's shares sink for a second day. Traders still expect Jensen Huang to survive the year, but they see real danger building into 2027.
- Former SDNY acting US attorney Joon Kim will lead Nvidia's board inquiry into Jensen Huang
- Traders give Huang's exit by end-March 2027 a 27% chance, against 16% by year end
- Apple is now heavy favourite to end 2026 as the world's biggest company
What it means
- StocksNvidia is trading at a governance discount, not a leadership-change price; a clean report could narrow it quickly…
- BusinessNvidia's cloud partners in South-east Asia, and the hyperscalers that buy capacity through them, face tougher end-user…
- PolicyThe case strengthens Washington's hand in pressing Singapore and Malaysia to police re-exports, and gives…
- GovernanceA board that hires a former Wall Street prosecutor to examine its founder is preparing for findings it may have to act…
What to watch
- 18 NovThe House briefing on 18 November is the first fixed date
The odds
Polymarket · finalJensen Huang's exit as Nvidia CEO announced in 2026
Resolved yes16% when this was published
- Jensen Huang announced resignation or removal by March 31, 2027100%Resolved yes
- Largest Company end of December 2026: NVIDIA8%down 26 points
- Largest Company end of December 2026: Apple91%up 25 points
Nvidia's independent directors have picked a prosecutor, not a governance consultant, to examine their chief executive. On Tuesday the board said it had retained Joon H. Kim, a former acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz "to conduct a thorough and independent investigation as was announced on Sunday".
Investors did not wait for the findings. Nvidia's shares fell more than 6% on Tuesday after a 4.3% drop on Monday, wiping almost $500bn off the company in two sessions and leaving the stock 31% below its 6 October record. During Tuesday's trading Microsoft briefly overtook Nvidia as the world's second most valuable listed company, the first time it had ranked ahead since June 2025.
The inquiry has two strands. One is personal: Jensen Huang has admitted to staff that he was unfaithful to his wife. The other runs through a Singapore data-centre company, Megaspeed, and the question of whether Nvidia chips sold in South-east Asia ended up in China.
A prosecutor's brief, not a rubber stamp
Kim spent his time at the Southern District taking on organised crime and large hedge funds, and the board has signalled that it does not intend the inquiry to rubber-stamp its founder. Its Sunday statement said it had "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised", and that the inquiry "will examine all available information".
The woman at the centre of the case is Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and Megaspeed executive who is not related to the Nvidia chief. US officials concluded last year that she was targeting him on Beijing's behalf, The New York Times reported earlier this month. She has not been charged, and China's foreign ministry has dismissed the reports as smears. Huang has not named her. In his note to staff he wrote: "My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did." Nvidia says he is committed to continuing as chief executive "without interruption".
President Donald Trump said on Monday that the FBI was looking into the matter, while defending Huang: he "had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy", Trump said. The House Select Committee on China has asked Huang to attend a briefing on 18 November.
Singapore's awkward role
Megaspeed, which rents out AI computing capacity and calls itself a "core business partner" of Nvidia's cloud business in the region, has been under US scrutiny since 2024 over whether chips it bought were steered to China.
On Tuesday The Information reported, citing two acquaintances of Alice Huang, that her relationship with the Nvidia chief helped route at least $7.5bn of Nvidia AI chips, roughly 240,000 units, to Chinese companies through Megaspeed, its Malaysian affiliate Speedmatrix and a Shanghai partner. The claim is unproven. Megaspeed has called earlier reporting "misleading information and incorrect insinuations", and says inspections by the US Commerce Department, Malaysia's trade ministry and Nvidia found "no evidence of any violations concerning the illicit transfer of chips or any illegal activities".
Singapore's government has said it did not investigate Alice Huang's alleged intelligence ties, while police inquiries into Megaspeed under domestic law continue. The city state does not enforce other countries' unilateral export controls, so cases there turn on fraud and false declarations rather than on US rules. That is the gap the scandal exposes: a regional hub for AI hardware, policed by laws written for something else.
Traders see survival now, risk later
Prediction markets treat Huang's departure as possible but not likely, and as a slow-burning risk rather than an imminent one. Polymarket traders put the chance that his resignation or removal is announced by 31 December at 16% (as of 11 November), up from 12.5% a week ago.
Stretch the horizon to the end of March 2027 and the probability rises to 27%, up from 22% over the week, though on only about $111,000 of trading. The gap is the point: traders give nearly as much chance to an exit in the first three months of next year as in the rest of this one. That is consistent with an inquiry that takes months, and with congressional and FBI scrutiny that could outlast the board's findings.
The bigger repricing is in Nvidia's standing. A week ago traders gave Nvidia a 62% chance of ending December as the world's largest company; that has collapsed to 14%. Apple has moved the other way, from 37% to 83%. What has changed is the price investors attach to the man who built the company and the board that oversees him.
Why the market could be wrong
The case for calm is real. The board has said it sees no compromise of secrets, the president has publicly backed Huang, and Megaspeed points to clean inspections by regulators in two countries. If Kim's inquiry confirms that, the governance discount could unwind as fast as it appeared. The case for alarm is that the allegations now concern billions of dollars of chips, not a private relationship.
What it means for markets, business and policy
Stocks Nvidia is trading at a governance discount, not a leadership-change price; a clean report could narrow it quickly, while any finding on chip diversion would cement Apple's and Microsoft's lead at the top of the market.
NVDAAAPLMSFTBusiness Nvidia's cloud partners in South-east Asia, and the hyperscalers that buy capacity through them, face tougher end-user checks and slower deal approvals while the inquiry runs.
Policy The case strengthens Washington's hand in pressing Singapore and Malaysia to police re-exports, and gives export-control hawks in Congress a concrete example to cite.
Governance A board that hires a former Wall Street prosecutor to examine its founder is preparing for findings it may have to act on, which is why traders' worry rises with time.
What to watch
The House briefing on 18 November is the first fixed date. Then watch for word from Singapore's police on Megaspeed, any US charges, and whether the chance of Huang's exit by end-March climbs past one in three.
The board has chosen an investigator who knows how to follow a supply chain. Whether that saves Huang or ends his tenure depends on where it leads.