Spy story, chip shock: $NVDA’s red November has Washington demanding answers

Nvidia shares plunged to $166.95 on Tuesday afternoon, down 18.42% for November and erasing all the gains accumulated in 2026, as House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast said he was prepared to subpoena CEO Jensen Huang unless the CEO responded by Wednesday, November 11, to a request for a closed-door briefing. The stock was roughly 10.5% below its $186.50 closing price at the end of 2025 and 31.4% below its recent $243.37 peak. Tuesday’s decline exceeded 6% in afternoon trading after a 4.3% fall on Monday, putting Nvidia on track to lose more than $470 billion in market value over two sessions. November was shaping up as its worst month since September 2022, when shares lost roughly 19.6%, following a 32% crash in April of that year.

Nvidia had closed at $186.64 on November 6, a day after a 9.3% plunge, while AMD fell 17.3% during the November 5 AI chip selloff. Options expiring November 11 carried a trader-priced range of $179.35 to $198.09, and Nvidia earnings are scheduled for November 17, one day before the proposed congressional briefing. Apple fell about 5% after hours when Steve Jobs stepped down in 2011, while Intel rose more than 3% when Pat Gelsinger left in 2024. Nvidia’s annual report states that the company is “highly dependent” on its longtime executives, although no official has called for Huang to leave.

The proposed November 18 appearance concerns allegations raised in a U.S. intelligence memo that China’s main spy agency recruited Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based chip buyer Megaspeed. The memo is not public, its claims are unproven, and Nvidia has described the contacts as “not unusual.” The Financial Times reported that the two allegedly had a romantic relationship, while The New York Times reported that Trump was briefed on Alice Huang about a year ago and chose not to act because officials feared harming Nvidia’s chip sales. U.S. authorities have investigated whether Alice Huang, who has no family relationship to the Nvidia CEO, passed information to Beijing, but the allegations have not established that Jensen Huang knowingly disclosed confidential information or violated export rules.

Mast and two other Republican committee chairs requested that Huang explain his interactions with Alice Huang and provide details about Nvidia’s safeguards against foreign espionage. No subpoena had been issued at the time of the report. Three Republican House members had also asked Huang to appear in a briefing on whether he had been targeted by a Chinese intelligence agent. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who wants Huang to testify before Congress about Nvidia’s chip sales to China and related matters, posted on October 29: “Huang and NVIDIA’s board owe Congress answers.” Trump called Huang “very aboveboard” on October 31 but described the matter as “a very complex issue.”

Nvidia’s board announced an independent investigation on Sunday, saying it had no reason to believe that national security or company secrets had been compromised. The Financial Times reported that Nvidia hired former U.S. prosecutor Joon H Kim to conduct the internal investigation. Shareholders filed a proposed class-action lawsuit on Monday alleging that Nvidia and Huang failed to disclose risks associated with the reported relationship. The scrutiny arrives as Democrats prepare to take control of regulatory committees after the midterm election, while Republicans plan tougher chip export controls; Trump had also appointed leaders from crypto, blockchain, AI and technology industries to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in March and previously met with Huang to discuss Nvidia’s export controls.