THE CRUNCH
Nvidia shares bounced back on Thursday after the company announced Jensen Huang's retirement as CEO, recovering from a rough opening to trade between $163 and $166 on the Nasdaq. Shares had started as low as $151 in pre-market trading, the company's worst open since June 2025, before the memory crisis began, so the climb back represents roughly a 10% recovery and puts the price near where it sat on Wednesday, November 11 at 5 PM ET.
The retirement caps a turbulent week. Huang admitted to an affair on Sunday, a second allegation followed on Wednesday, and the stock swung wildly in between: down $15 between Friday night and Monday morning, up to $181 by Monday's close, then back down to $167 on Tuesday. Huang, who cofounded Nvidia and has led it since 1993, steered the company to a valuation that at one point made it the most valuable in the world; it remains worth multiple trillions of dollars.
CFO Colette Kress has taken over, but only in the interim, and speculation about a permanent successor is already wide open, with names floated ranging from the chiefs of Intel, AMD and Arm to Elon Musk. Donald Trump has reportedly suggested ex-Apple CEO Tim Cook for the chair. Industry figures including Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney and Hugging Face co-founder Clement Delangue publicly lamented the departure, while CNBC's Jim Cramer offered a blunter farewell.