Nvidia has lost $450 billion since Jensen Huang admitted to an affair. Millions of 401(k)s are exposed

Detailed summary

Two retirement experts explain how much of a typical 401(k) rides on Nvidia and why savers should sit tight.

Nvidia shares fell nearly 8% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the Wall Street Journal reported that the chipmaker’s board is preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang. The board could meet imminently to decide his future, the report said.

The stock had closed the regular session up about 3%, at $173.73, before sliding to roughly $160 in post-market trading, per Yahoo Finance. The same day, The New York Times reported that Huang had a second extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care.

The turmoil began Nov. 8, when Huang admitted to an affair with Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed International whom U.S. officials believe is an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security, per the AP. The two are not related. Nvidia has since lost more than $450 billion in market value, according to CBS News.

That selloff reaches well past Wall Street. Nvidia, No. 16 on the 2026 Fortune 500, was worth about $4.1 trillion at Wednesday’s close, second only to Apple, according to Companies Market Cap. A company that size sits inside the index funds and target-date funds that anchor millions of Americans’ 401(k)s, whether those savers chose it or not.

Founded in April 1993 and public since January 1999, Nvidia became the first company ever to reach a $5.5 trillion market cap in May 2026, per Yahoo Finance. Several experts Fortune spoke with said that while the details of Alice Huang’s background and affiliations remain murky, the implications for the average investor are already fairly clear.

“The average American’s exposure to NVIDIA stock volatility depends on how they invest, but a reasonable estimate is 3% to 5%,” Leonard Gilroy, senior managing director of the Reason Foundation’s Pension Integrity Project, told Fortune.

“NVIDIA represents about 6% of the total market capitalization of the S&P 500 and about 10% of the total market cap of the NASDAQ100,” he said.

That would be the worst case, and most retirement accounts are…

Publ…

Opening of the article, excerpted from Fortune. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.