Jim Cramer: What Jensen Huang’s affair with an accused Chinese spy means for Nvidia stock
If I didn’t own Nvidia , I wouldn’t buy it on Monday. The stock will probably go lower from wherever it opens. That said, Nvidia still represents the most cutting-edge tech we have, and that won’t go away. Nor is the considerable bench that CEO Jensen Huang has — something needed when a 63-year-old is running the company. So, why not buy it? Because the affair with an accused Chinese spy that Jensen had and now admits to — after initially denying it to the press — is going to take a big chunk out of this stock simply because no one knows where this investigation is going to go. So, why not sell it? A hedge fund would be wise to sell it, and then buy it back later. But I don’t know how much later, and we are not hedge fund managers. I think Nvidia will report outstanding numbers on Nov. 17. I do not believe that, even after the Democratic wave in the election, the data center story is played out. It is slowed, but it is still alive. The simple fact is that if you buy Nvidia’s product — not Jensen’s, but Nvidia’s — like Elon Musk has, you can make a huge return either by selling the compute or by using the compute. Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) last longer than people think. Compute is worth more than people realize. But Jensen’s story? It is complicated, and complicated means long investigations, and long investigations, no doubt by multiple government entities, spell dead money for shareholders. Nothing will be cleared up by earnings, although I do believe that the numbers will be so good that you could get a rally even with Jensen sidelined by this and yet still with the company. Did Jensen do something inappropriate? Of course. He admitted it. Should he have realized that he is not just a husband and a father but the CEO of arguably the most important company of our time and a steward of the shareholders? No kidding. I am not, however, here to judge him personally for doing something that others have done, for doing something stupid, that I am sure he wishes he hadn’t done. It is way too late for that. The infidelity? That’s between Jensen and his family. It’s the investigations and the news flow that are going to make it a very hard stock to own, or, should I say, an even harder stock to own post-midterms. I, fundamentally, believe that this was a story just about infidelity. I do not think that Jensen gave Megaspeed’s Alice Huang (no relation, just the same name) any proprietary Nvidia secrets. I do not think he compromised national security. I believe that he did not know she was part of what U.S. intelligence officials think was a Chinese plot to find out trade secrets or our government’s policy. I do not think he told her anything about his relationship with the U.S. government that we don’t know or can’t figure out. I don’t think it was a serious relationship. None of what I think matters. No innocent but knuckleheaded narrative is going to come to save him or his shareholders because this one is just too juicy to ignore and exploit, especially for anyone who wants this stock down, and there were many who do already. So, who is Alice Huang and why did Jensen spend time with her? Nvidia knew her as a representative of Megaspeed, a neocloud company that fashioned itself as a Southeast Asian CoreWeave-type. My understanding is that this is what Jensen knew about the company when he was first intimate with her. He would not have knowingly done business with a company that the Commerce Department told him not to, and I do not believe the Commerce Department told him not to at the time. What we don’t know: (1) Alice Huang’s real role at the company, which some say was CEO, and others say was just a high-level executive; (2) Did Jensen break it off after an Oct. 9, 2025 story in The New York Times, which implied that there was a relationship with her but unquestionably told a story of a company linked to the People’s Republic of China. I am told she left the company around the time of that October 2025 article, but I can’t confirm that. What I do know, though, is that if she stayed at Megaspeed after that and he continued the affair after that same article, the Nvidia board will be hard-pressed to continue to let him work there. Continuing an affair with her after that article seems to me to be a level of recklessness that warrants him being asked to step down by the board. Nvidia’s board has opened an investigation into this. Actually, again, if he continued to have an affair after the article, I think he should resign now. I wish I didn’t have to write that, but I know if I were on the board, I would have a hard time letting him stay without some extenuating circumstance coming to light. It’s just too darned irresponsible. We also know from a recent New York Times article that President Donald Trump was briefed on Nvidia’s close role with Megaspeed — and from what we can tell, chose to do nothing. We know the Democrats are not going to let that aspect of the story die. Republicans want answers, too. Jensen already faces bipartisan scrutiny on Capitol Hill. More investigations. Another reason you can’t buy the stock. That’s all I have right now. Is it an “own it, don’t trade it stock” after this? I think there is a big bench at Nvidia — but without Jensen, it is just another stock, a stock that can be owned and traded because it has a good group of people at the top. For now, it is in a purgatory created by Jensen. If we can avoid purgatories, we must do so. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long NVDA. 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