Nvidia reclaims $4 trillion close as retail buyers pare crash, Reuters reports third Jensen Huang affair and Paul Weiss hired

Nvidia shares clawed back more than half of an opening 14 percent plunge to finish down 4.34 percent above a $4 trillion market cap on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026, even as Reuters reported a third Jensen Huang affair and Huang retained Paul, Weiss.

Key closing-bell numbers and overnight Nvidia developments

• Regular-session close: NVDA ended Thursday regular trading down 4.34% (around $165–$166, versus Wednesday’s $173.73 close), recovering late in the afternoon to preserve Nvidia’s streak of closing above $4 trillion since July 2025.
• Weekly valuation toll: Despite the intraday bounce from $150-level morning lows, Nvidia has still shed roughly $490 billion in market value since closing last Friday (Nov. 6) at $4.498 trillion (-10.96% over five sessions).
• Third affair reported: Hours after Huang stepped down, Reuters reported—citing two people familiar with the matter—that the 63-year-old co-founder had an intimate relationship with a second unnamed Nvidia employee, marking a third alleged extramarital relationship.
• Outside legal counsel: The New York Times reported Thursday afternoon that Huang has retained defense attorneys from powerhouse law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
• Competitor and valuation shift: Rival chipmakers AMD (+2.0%) and Broadcom (+1.4%) closed higher Thursday, while LSEG data showed Nvidia trading near 12x 12-month forward earnings—its lowest forward multiple since November 2012.

How did Nvidia reclaim its $4 trillion market cap before Thursday’s closing bell?

After Nvidia’s 8:48 a.m. ET announcement and Form 8-K confirmed Huang’s immediate resignation, institutional de-risking initially knocked the chipmaker down nearly 14 percent to its lowest share price since June 2025—briefly threatening a $600 billion single-day wipeout.

Aggressive retail dip-buying and afternoon short-covering steadily absorbed the morning panic once investors digested two stabilizing anchors: longtime Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress remaining in command as interim CEO alongside newly named Chair of the Board Harvey C. Jones, and confirmation that Nvidia’s fiscal third-quarter earnings report will proceed on schedule after the bell on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Still, institutional skeptics warned that governance overhang remains far from resolved. Short sellers booked billions in paper gains across the five-day slide, while Questar Capital Partners chief investment officer Richard Reyle argued that Nvidia’s historic lack of a formal succession plan left many conservative mandates sidelined until a permanent chief executive is named.

What did Reuters reveal about a third Jensen Huang workplace relationship?

The late-afternoon governance picture darkened further when Reuters reported that Huang had carried on a third extramarital relationship—involving a second Nvidia employee—while leading the Santa Clara chipmaker.

The disclosure widens an internal compliance crisis that began Sunday, Nov. 8, when Huang apologized to employees for marital infidelity following reports linking him to former Singapore-based Megaspeed executive Alice Huang (Huang Le), whom U.S. intelligence officials suspect of ties to China’s Ministry of State Security. On Wednesday, Nov. 11, The New York Times reported a second relationship involving Nvidia Vice President of Healthcare Kimberly Powell, a direct report to the CEO, accelerating the board’s move to end Huang’s 33-year tenure.

Retaining Paul, Weiss positions Huang with heavyweight litigation and congressional-investigations counsel just as he prepares to testify before three U.S. House committees ahead of Thanksgiving and confronts proposed federal shareholder class-action lawsuits.

What will Wall Street watch on Nvidia’s Nov. 17 earnings call?

With Huang off both the executive team and the board, Tuesday’s Nov. 17 quarterly call turns into the most consequential financial briefing in semiconductor history for Kress and senior engineering leaders such as hyperscale computing chief Ian Buck.

Analysts say Wall Street will press Kress on three immediate questions: whether hyperscale cloud commitments for Blackwell and next-generation AI clusters remain completely untouched by the leadership shake-up, whether the board’s Wachtell Lipton review uncovered any undisclosed export-control or financial-reporting exposure, and how quickly Harvey C. Jones’s search committee expects to shortlist permanent internal and external CEO candidates.