Wall Street Estimates Share Price Could Fall Back to $122
Nvidia's board reportedly met to decide on Jensen Huang's retention, and the market has begun assessing the value of an "Nvidia without Jensen Huang." Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives said if Jensen Huang is removed, Nvidia's share price and enterprise value could shrink by 25% to 30%, falling to about $122 based on the closing price of about $173 on the 11th. Freedom Broker analysts estimate a decline of between 10% and 30%. Following the news, Nvidia plunged about 9% in after-hours trading on the 11th to $158.78.
Market Cap Loss Estimated at About $1.4 Trillion
Financial Times columnist John Foley borrowed Bank of America's assumption to estimate that Nvidia currently holds about a 72% GPU market share with about a 73% gross margin, implying 2030 gross profit of $930 billion; without Jensen Huang, if market share fell to 50% and gross margin fell to 65%, gross profit would be $300 billion lower, translating into a market cap loss of about $1.4 trillion, about 30% of the pre-event $4.5 trillion market cap. By comparison, Tesla fell 15% in 2018 when Elon Musk was asked by regulators to step down, while McDonald's and Intel fell less than 3% when their CEOs departed over relationships.
Near-Term Revenue Solid, Long-Term Decision-Making in Focus
Jensen Huang may not leave completely. Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management, believes Huang could be disciplined and no longer serve as CEO, but remain at Nvidia as a director or strategic adviser; some corporate governance experts also believe the board could keep him on with enhanced oversight. Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, said demand for Nvidia's Blackwell chips, the Rubin product roadmap and the CUDA ecosystem are already solid, so revenue will not suddenly disappear over the next 12 to 18 months even if Huang leaves. Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, also believes AI infrastructure customers will act in their own interests and will buy Nvidia chips with or without Huang.
Three Taiwan Supply-Chain Names Seen as Less Exposed
The real risk lies further out. Technology analysts note that without Huang, Nvidia's biggest problem would be slower decision-making, giving AMD, Broadcom and cloud operators' in-house chips time to catch up. Ten Cap chief portfolio manager Liu Junpei warned that emerging cloud data center operators are almost all backed by Nvidia, and it is uncertain for the whole AI industry whether Nvidia would still commit as much capital in the future. Huang has long advocated letting Nvidia sell chips to China and has built a close relationship with Trump. Bloomberg Economics believes that if he departs, it will be harder for Nvidia to maintain its chip and AI system leadership, and the tech industry's most influential voice against tougher China controls would be weakened. Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon, who called Huang the "architect of America's AI roadmap," cut his Nvidia price target from $400 to $200 on the evening of the 11th. Securities analyst Zhang Chenhao believes that if he steps down as CEO, most of Taiwan's supply chain would be affected, naming only TSMC (2330), ASE Technology Holding (3711) and MediaTek (2454) as irreplaceable and less to worry about.