Nvidia Stock Tumbles After Jensen Huang Resigns as CEO

Nvidia’s shares sank Thursday, sending tremors through global markets, as the company’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, stepped down from his role.

Shares in Nvidia dropped more than 4 percent by the time markets closed for trading on Thursday, wiping out nearly $1 trillion from the company’s market value this month alone. The stock fell by as much as 14 percent Thursday morning but pared most of those losses as investors’ fears about the company’s future without Mr. Huang eased.

Nvidia has emerged as central to the A.I. economy because its chips — or graphic processing units — help train and power models across the industry. It has also become a central bank of sorts for several A.I. companies, because its finances are deeply intertwined with those of everyone from frontier A.I. labs to neoclouds, which rent out computing power.

“This is an Nvidia problem before it is an A.I. problem,” said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial. But he added that Nvidia’s woes could trickle through to other companies.

“Where I would be careful is with the smaller A.I. cloud companies that leaned on Nvidia’s checkbook,” he said. “If the new regime gets more conservative about financing its own customers, that is where it shows up first.”

The company’s board named Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer, as its interim chief executive.