The past few days have seen the entire circle buzzing over the gossip surrounding Jensen Huang. To be honest, when I chatted with a few friends who follow overseas hard tech about this earlier in the week, the general feeling was that it would blow over like a passing gust. After all, Trump had publicly praised Huang as a "decent man" over the weekend, and market expectations were quite simple at the time: the founder of a $4 trillion empire, at the peak of the computing arms race — would the board really dare to cut off its own arm? But over the past two days, as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times dropped one hard-hitting revelation after another, the entire wind has shifted completely. Rather than relying on words, let's look directly at the real-money forecasts on the prediction market Polymarket (total trading volume has already surpassed $5.08 million): the numbers on the board are more honest than any rumor. Note that all of Polymarket's settlement nodes default to Eastern Time (ET): on November 11 ET (before 1 PM Beijing time on November 12), the probability of Huang announcing resignation or being ousted had already surged to 42%. Extending to November 12 ET (corresponding to noon Beijing time on November 13), that number jumped directly to 69%. Looking toward year-end, the market assigns a departure probability as high as 90% (a single-day surge of 73 percentage points). Simply put, in the eyes of traders putting real money on the line, Huang's exit is essentially already "an open card" — the only remaining question is "the exact date of the official announcement." Today we won't dwell on lurid gossip details. Instead, following the hidden threads of corporate governance, Wall Street capital, and Washington politics, let's walk through how this situation spiraled step by step out of control. Why did that "get-out-of-jail-free card" suddenly stop working? Many domestic investors are used to applying the founder-controlled company mindset to Nvidia, assuming that as long as performance is explosive enough, the board has to protect him. But on the card table of Wall Street and Washington, this logic is actually quite fragile. First, the scandal was only the fuse — what's truly fatal is the "internal compliance red line" and political score-settling. When the relationship with the Singapore executive (Alice Huang) first broke, although it involved suspicion from U.S. intelligence agencies, investigations take time, and given the White House's attitude, the board had every reason to stall. But the second bombshell thrown by the New York Times immediately nailed down the nature of the situation — the person involved was Kimberly Powell, a vice president in Nvidia's own healthcare business, a direct subordinate. Anyone familiar with the overseas tech world knows that a CEO having an undisclosed intimate relationship with a direct subordinate is an absolute "high-voltage wire" in corporate governance. Back in the day, Intel's Brian Krzanich and McDonald's Steve Easterbrook were both shown the door at lightning speed for this very reason, despite decent performance at the time. Once the facts are verified, in the face of fiduciary duties and shareholder class actions, whoever protects him will have to bear the consequences themselves. Second, don't forget the broader context: Washington has just changed hands, and old scores are being recalculated. Many veteran observers in the circle have pointed out an extremely delicate timing: the midterm elections concluded in early November, the Democrats had just regained control of Congress, and the media's密集 revelations about Huang exploded on a precisely calibrated rhythm. Under the new political winds, the commercial agreement Huang reached with the Trump administration last year — "exchanging a 25% revenue share for approval of H200 chip exports to China" — has been recharacterized as a "dangerous compromise to American AI sovereignty." Several House committees immediately demanded he appear for closed-door briefings. For an Asian tech leader lacking deep native political roots, once political protection is lost, any personal-life flaw will be magnified infinitely into a national security risk. Third, look at the equity cards clearly: Huang actually does not have a "veto power" on the board. Nvidia is not Meta — it has no dual-class share structure with different voting rights. Huang personally, plus his foundation, holds only about 3.58% of the shares. The ones truly sitting in the main seats at the table are Wall Street's top institutions like Vanguard (about 9.3%) and BlackRock (about 7.4%). What's even more intriguing is the quiet reshuffling of Nvidia's board over the past few months: Huang's longtime allies (such as Mark Perry and others) have gradually exited key committees, replaced by Suzanne Nora Johnson, who joined the audit committee in July this year with a Goldman Sachs and think-tank background, and heavyweight figures like Kenneth Jacobs, who is deeply tied to Vanguard and core policy circles. When the Wall Street Journal released the rumor during Wednesday's intraday session ET that "the board is preparing to meet and decide on removal," those in the know could see at a glance that this was no media speculation — it was the board, after the handover of old and new power, having already coordinated with major institutional shareholders and giving the market a preemptive heads-up. How will the script play out over the next few months? Now that Polymarket has priced the probability of departure before year-end at 90%, the market's biggest concern is "how it will go" and "how much it will fall." Combining Wall Street's playbook for handling similar crises, there are really only three paths. The first, and most likely (I'd give it 65%): a dignified "voluntary resignation" plus a co-interim CEO transition. This perfectly matches the sharp jump in Polymarket odds on November 12 ET (69%) and November 13 ET (71%). After all, Wall Street itself holds trillions in Nvidia stock — a truly public falling-out would be devastating for both the share price and morale. Most likely the two sides will reach a private agreement, and within the next couple of days, Huang will issue a statement voluntarily resigning as CEO and director for "personal and family reasons." Immediately after, the board should roll out a transitional combination to steady the ship — most likely CFO Colette Kress paired with Nick Parker, the EVP of global field operations poached from Microsoft in August this year. One handles money and Wall Street communications, the other handles key account sales. Market scenario: after Wednesday's after-hours session ET, the stock had already dropped seven or eight points, and on the day of the official announcement it will probably see another inertial 5%–10% plunge, after which the market will hold its breath and wait for the earnings data after the close on November 17 ET (early morning November 18 Beijing time) to set the tone. The second scenario, the hardline script (about 20% probability): the board directly announces dismissal, a complete clean break. This depends on whether the independent investigation uncovers something deeper — for example, whether it involves technology leaks, or whether during the tightest period of GPU allocation, there was any transfer of benefits to related parties. Once there's hard evidence of this, the board won't keep him for a minute — it will issue a dismissal announcement directly, and may even trigger clauses to claw back part of his equity incentives. Market scenario: if it comes to this, it's a full-blown panic sell, and Nvidia's valuation center could be slashed by 15%–25%, with the entire AI hardware chain experiencing violent turbulence. The third scenario, a low-probability reversal (maybe 15%): stay on in an observation capacity, but with power completely hollowed out. Even if the final investigation does not substantiate the most serious allegations, Huang absolutely cannot return to the way things were. The board will most likely split his dual roles of chairman and CEO, and through a newly created compliance committee, take away all approval authority over chip exports, overseas strategy, and daily supply chain decisions, completely ending his era of "one man calls the shots." Market scenario: there will definitely be an 8%–12% relief rally in the short term, but the "governance discount" hat will be firmly placed, and the market will certainly apply a discount to its PE multiple going forward. Without Huang, how will the AI computing chess game change? Honestly, if Huang really exits the stage, the short-term impact on Nvidia's fundamentals could be greater than many people imagine. Over the past thirty-plus years, Huang built an extremely unusual organizational structure — a full 60 executives reporting directly to him alone, with almost no buffer layer in between, and no successor plan ever publicly announced all these years. He was not just CEO but effectively chief product architect and the world's number one salesman. In the current management team, CFO Kress has impeccable financial credentials, but she is not a chip architecture person by background; the newly arrived Parker has strong commercial skills, but having just joined the company a few months ago, whether he can command the room remains a question mark. Without Huang in the middle making final calls and coordinating, whether the Vera Rubin architecture's mass production ramp proceeds smoothly will absolutely be the biggest focal point over the next two quarters. Looking further out, the valuation logic will also have to change. Over the past three years, Wall Street dared to give Nvidia such a high valuation largely because of the vision premium attached to Huang as "the next Steve Jobs." Without this soul figure, even if TSMC's CoWoS capacity remains fully booked, institutions will become more conservative when pricing long-term growth. Also, don't forget he may have to face a sky-high divorce asset split — whether that 3.58% stake will face selling pressure in the future is something the market will surely be uneasy about. Of course, one person's worry is another's joy. In the past, Huang relied on his personal prestige to exercise iron-fisted control over upstream suppliers (TSMC, SK Hynix) and to impose strong pricing on downstream cloud giants (Microsoft, Google, Meta). Once Nvidia falls into a leadership transition vacuum, AMD absolutely has a golden window to grab share; and those cloud giants will have more confidence to push their own custom ASIC chips, seizing the opportunity to weaken the absolute dominance of the CUDA ecosystem. The business world is like this — no matter how legendary the individual heroism, in the face of the cold rules of trillion-dollar capital and the state machine, one ultimately has to bow. Looking at that glaring "90%" on Polymarket, the lights in Santa Clara, California, probably won't go out tonight. Whether it ends in a dignified exit or a restructuring of power, the era belonging to Jensen Huang is most likely turning its final page, and the reshuffling of the global AI supply chain may arrive sooner than we expect. Note: The industries mentioned in this article are for case analysis only and do not constitute any investment advice. Markets carry risk; invest with caution. If you are still confused about when the market will stabilize; if you are puzzled about industry investing; if you find it hard to grasp new hot themes; if you feel at a loss about capital rotation and sector volatility — then scan the QR code to join us, obtain more detailed supply chain analysis and investment strategies, and follow Gelonghui Research Institute to seize opportunities in the investment wave and share in the dividends of the industrial revolution.
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