Beneath the personal story sit the structural motives. Trump’s renewed crackdown on diversion (repeatedly authorized, repeatedly stalled by Lutnick) is less about a few extra chips reaching China than leverage over China’s rare-earth export reductions (yttrium, dysprosium, terbium)—the materials that actually constrain advanced AI packaging and weapons systems. The intensity of the push following US elections also reflects a deeper institutional reaction: Jensen has been the most visible defender of open models and the least interested in regulatory capture. The same circles that want licensing regimes for frontier models and firmware-level export controls on Nvidia hardware see him as the obstacle. Whether coordinated or emergent, the effect is the same—scandals become levers. The Anthropic IPO now comes at a good time from a business standpoint.
China’s hardware response is the long-term counterweight. Overnight chatter of DeepSeek Version5 was released with pre-training a ~2 T-parameter sparse MoE natively on Huawei Ascend 950 chips. If even partial success occurs, incremental demand for the highest-end Nvidia parts softens. 20% of NVDA revenues come from “Singapore”.
The Apple parallel is important though slightly different. Steve Jobs took medical leave in January 2011 and died in October; but Tim Cook had already been operating as de-facto CEO. Apple’s revenue still grew quickly and the stock OUTPERFORMED for the next two years before stalling. Nvidia’s product pipeline is widely viewed as covering the next ~18–24 months even under a transition. The difference is that Jobs left a finished platform and a smaller set of external relationships; Jensen has run the company with an unusually large number of direct reports and has been the central node through his personal relationships with hyperscaler and sovereign customers.
NVDA proxy-access bylaws add a wrinkle: Huang’s ~3.5–3.6 % stake meets the 3 % / 3-year threshold, allowing him to nominate directors and force them onto the proxy. Full removal is therefore potentially reversible if he and other large shareholders choose to fight. Combined with earlier Trump defense of him and the board’s initial confidence statement, this keeps a non-trivial probability that he remains.
Odds of Jensen remaining CEO
Full continuation as CEO with only reputational damage: ~15 %. The second affair with a subordinate is a classic governance trigger; the spy overlay makes it politically radioactive.
Stays in some capacity (executive chairman, or returns after a brief leave) or the board blinks: ~15 %.
Out as CEO by or shortly after the Nov 17 earnings window: ~70 %.
These are trading odds, not moral judgments. The market has already priced a large portion of the downside; the residual is path-dependent on the board’s precise language and whether any successor immediately resets the bar.
Trading implications across horizons
Near-term (this week into earnings next week): There is a high probability Jensen is out today. This will likely see the stock down another 5%. The question then becomes if he willingly walks away or attempts a proxy fight to name himself or allies to the board. Equity owners want clarity, even if it is without their leather jacket wearing hero. $240 to $140/150 puts us in a 40% drawdown area which is very appealing, even if the “Singapore” revenue line drops from 20% to 0. This was a very well known headwind, the Chinese want locals to use China made products. The question now is more focused on the perceived scarcity of NVDA chips and weaker pricing power. What would scare me is if margins were weaker this quarter, as the peak margin story changes the narrative for long term holders.
Medium-term: the secular AI demand curve (especially agentic workloads) remains intact if leadership stabilizes within two quarters. The risks that matter are (1) measurable Chinese silicon progress and (2) a durable shift in U.S. policy toward licensing and heavier export controls. For more sophisticated investors, using the uptick in vol and selling (covered) calls may make more sense as I don’t see an immediate V-shaped bounce back to $200.