Trader loses millions after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang steps down Anand Sinha Thu, November 12, 2026 at 12:45 PM EST 3 min read NVDA -4.96% Trade NVIDIA on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang decided to step down days after admitting to an affair with a woman the U.S intelligence officials believe to be a Chinese spy.
The relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed, has put Nvidia's most powerful figure at the center of a national security probe.
It was last week that Huang admitted to having the affair in an internal memo to Nvidia employees. The company's board said it had no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, but is nonetheless launching an investigation.
The top executive, 63, was Nvidia's largest shareholder, owning about 3.6% of the company, and is one of the richest people in the world.
During his tenure, Nvidia became the world's most valuable company as the chipmaker cashed in on the AI boom. The company's high powered graphics processing units (GPUs) with billions of transistors have become the engine of the AI revolution.
Tech tycoon Elon Musk came out in his support yesterday and said it "would be an honor" to hire him.
Huang has stepped down as president, CEO, and a board member, effective immediately. CFO Colette Kress will take over as interim CEO.
The company will report its third-quarter fiscal 2027 financial results on Nov. 17.
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As Huang's affair came to light, a crypto trader opened a fivefold leveraged long position on Nvidia perpetual futures worth $24.2 million and a twice-leveraged long on SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK) perpetual futures worth $12.7 million on Hyperliquid on Nov. 11.
Next, the trader closed their SanDisk long and bet all on Nvidia, increasing the long on its perpetual futures to $30.67 million despite an unrealized loss of $2.6 million.
The blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain disclosed the whale's positions.
The crypto trader chose Hyperliquid for the bets. A decentralized crypto exchange, it lets traders buy and sell high-leverage perpetual futures of stocks, commodities, etc.
The blockchain-based exchange gained immense popularity among oil traders looking for a 24/7 exchange during the U.S.-Iran war. But it now invites traders of all kinds whether they are trading cryptocurrencies or perpetuals.
A perpetual future, as the name suggests, is a contract without any expiry date that allows traders bet on whether an asset's price will surge or drop without owning it itself.
The exchange's xyz markets list these contracts for traditional assets such as U.S. stocks like Nvidia.
The crypto trader highlighted by Lookonchain closed his long $30.67 million position on Nvidia hours before Huang's resignation, losing $2.45 million on the audacious trade.
The Nvidia contract on Hyperliquid was trading at $161.23 at the time of writing, nearly 30% down from a month ago.
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This story was originally published by TheStreet on Nov 12, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
