Jensen Huang's exit sends Bitcoin to 12-week low Mehab Qureshi Fri, November 13, 2026 at 1:46 AM EST 5 min read NVDA -4.59% BTC-USD -6.59% 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 co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as CEO on Thursday, ending 33 years at the top of the chipmaker he built into a company worth about $4 trillion. Bitcoin fell to about $69,600 the same day, its lowest level in about 12 weeks.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) said in an SEC filing that its board accepted Huang's resignation as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is interim CEO while the board looks for a permanent replacement.
The announcement did not give a reason and did not include a statement from Huang. It came six days after Huang told employees he had been unfaithful to his wife.
Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns after Binance traders priced in his exit
Huang, 63, co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has led it ever since. Its graphics chips became the standard hardware for training and running AI models, which made Nvidia the biggest beneficiary of the AI boom.
Nvidia shares traded near $15 before ChatGPT launched and reached an all-time high of $243 last month, TechCrunch reported. Huang owns about 3.6% of the company, according to Reuters.
Related: Traders open $9.1 million in Nvidia shorts as CEO admits to affair
On Sunday, Nov. 8, Nvidia's board said it was investigating reports that Huang was the "target of a foreign intelligence effort," according to the Associated Press.
The board acted after Huang told it he had been intimate with a business executive. The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence determined she was gathering information for Beijing.
In a letter to staff, Huang said he had been unfaithful to his wife, apologized and took "full responsibility."
Neither Huang nor Nvidia named the woman. The Times identified her as Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and business executive.
China's foreign ministry has called the spying accusations "groundless," according to Reuters.
The chips are part of why the story reached Washington.
The U.S. restricts sales of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips to China.
Reuters, citing a report by The Information, said Alice Huang helped move at least $7.5 billion of Nvidia chips to Chinese firms through Megaspeed, a Singapore cloud company she controls.
Megaspeed has denied allegations that it got around U.S. export rules, the AP reported.
On Monday, Huang apologized to top executives in a closed-door meeting.
President Donald Trump said Huang told him he had "absolutely no idea" the woman was a spy. The FBI is separately examining whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation.
On Tuesday, Nvidia's independent directors hired law firm Wachtell Lipton and Joon Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to lead an independent investigation.
Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, said "he's got to go."
The Times also reported Tuesday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had briefed Trump about the intelligence on Huang in May. A White House official disputed the report.
Nvidia shares opened Thursday at $151.01, about 13% below Wednesday's close of $173.73, and fell as low as $148.80. They recovered to close at $166.19, down 4.3%.
That leaves the stock 30.5% below its record close of $239.24 on Oct. 6. Reuters reported Nvidia lost about $430 billion in market value over Monday and Tuesday alone.
Nvidia reports third-quarter results on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at about 4:20 p.m. ET, as previously scheduled. It will be the company's first earnings report since the crisis began.
China matters to those results. TechCrunch reported that Chinese customers made up about $7.9 billion, or roughly 8%, of Nvidia's second-quarter revenue.
Bitcoin traded near $69,600 at 10:20 p.m. ET Thursday, according to CoinGecko price data. That is about 5.6% below Wednesday evening and about 13% below its Nov. 4 close of $80,405, per Yahoo Finance.
Bitcoin was already falling before the Nvidia news. It dropped more than 5% on Nov. 5, the day after that close.
Since Nvidia's record close on Oct. 6, Bitcoin is down about 19% and Nvidia is down 30.5%. Daily prices since mid-September show the two often rose and fell on the same days.
A second pressure point came from the crypto market itself. Index provider MSCI said it will remove Michael Saylor's Bitcoin-holding company Strategy from its global indexes after determining it more closely resembles an investment fund, a change that could curb passive investment flows into the stock, Reuters reported.
TheStreet earlier reported that traders opened $9.1 million in Nvidia shorts after Huang admitted to the affair, a sign of how closely crypto traders were watching the story.
Nvidia's board is searching for a permanent CEO and will consider internal and external candidates. Kress keeps her CFO role while she serves as interim CEO.
The Wachtell investigation is still underway. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has called for tighter limits on chip exports to China.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Investments are subject to market risk. Always conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Nov 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
