Nvidia's CEO turmoil gives newly empowered Democrats fresh ammunition in pursuit of oversight

One question Democrats are likely to probe is whether the Trump administration was aware of Huang’s relationship with the alleged Chinese spy, and whether the Nvidia CEO influenced American policy, said Sam Bresnick, a research fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

“That is going to be very high up on the Democrats’ lists of people to investigate to try to figure out to what extent was the Trump administration aware of what was going on,” Bresnick said.

But pressure isn’t just coming from Democrats. House Republican leaders have already asked Huang for a closed-door briefing on Chinese spying issues later this month.

Trump has continued to back Huang, telling reporters on Sunday that he’s an “honorable guy” and has “done an amazing job for our country.”

“I think he probably has an excuse for it,” Trump said of the incident.

Critical time on Wall Street

Amid all the noise about the election results and the spying revelations, Nvidia is facing a crucial stretch on the markets.

Neoclouds CoreWeave and Nebius, which are both backed by Nvidia and are big buyers of its chips, are scheduled to report earnings this week after their stocks lost roughly half their value over the past month. Investors are particularly concerned about their hefty debt loads and how they’ll continue to fund their buildouts with interest rates rising and lenders turning skittish.

Nvidia has its own earnings report coming on Nov. 17, when Huang, assuming he sticks with the typical format, will face questions from analysts. And then there’s the Anthropic initial public offering, which is critical for Nvidia as it’s both an investor in the Claude creator and counts the AI lab as a significant customer.

A couple of weeks after earnings, Nvidia is hosting a large conference in Washington, D.C., where Huang is scheduled to give the keynote on Dec. 1.

Bullish investors and analysts can still point to the insatiable demand for Nvidia’s technology. The company recently projected 70% sales growth in its upcoming fiscal year. Analysts polled by FactSet expect nearly $694 billion in fiscal 2028 sales.

“We believe demand for the company’s products seems unlikely to be affected,” Rasgon wrote. “But it seems plausible to postulate increased risks (regulatory etc.) as AI buildouts become an increasingly political issue.”