Nvidia Shares Just Crashed Nearly 30% in Five Weeks. Dan Ives Says Losing Jensen Huang Would Cost Up to 30% More. Here’s the Math

Nvidia closed Tuesday at $168.89, down 5.5% on the day and 29.4% below its record close of $239.24 on October 6: nearly 30% in five weeks, about $1.7 trillion of market value across 24.1 billion shares. About $429 billion of that went in the two sessions since Jensen Huang told employees on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife, in a relationship with a woman U.S. intelligence officials suspect worked for a Chinese spy agency. For scale, Enron was worth about $68 billion at its August 2000 peak. Nvidia’s two-day loss is about six Enrons. The slide since October is about 25.

A loss that size in two days reads as the market pricing two possibilities at once: that Nvidia may have to run without its founder, and that Washington may close China to its chips for good. The limit of that reading is that Tuesday’s drop came on a day the whole market fell after a hot inflation report, and the analyst who put a number on the first risk, Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives, still puts the chance Huang is removed at about 15%.

If you hold Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), the question is what the next leg would cost you, and whether it is worth paying tax to shrink your position before you find out. Below is that math for a retired couple with 1,000 shares, built from Ives’ estimate, Nvidia’s own filings on China and Wall Street’s consensus for next year’s earnings. Every step states its assumption. It is a path, not a prediction.

What Dan Ives’ 30% means in dollars

Ives wrote on Tuesday that if Huang were removed as CEO, “Nvidia is worth a lot less (25%-30%) as a company/stock,” and that “Jensen is not replaceable.” He kept his Outperform rating and his $300 target, 78% above Tuesday’s close, because he expects Huang to stay.

At the top of his range, a 30% cut from $168.89 puts the stock at about $118 and removes another $1.2 trillion of market value. At 25% it lands near $127. That is the first leg, and the only one with a named analyst behind it.

What China is really worth to Nvidia

The second leg is the one Congress controls. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jim Banks want their AI Overwatch Act, which would let lawmakers review and block advanced chip exports to China, attached to the defense bill in the coming weeks, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries backs the Senate’s chip limits in the final bill. The Information reported Tuesday that the network around the woman in Huang’s case moved at least $7.5 billion of Nvidia hardware into China since 2023; Reuters could not verify it.

How much revenue you should count as at risk depends on whose number you believe. Nvidia’s 10-Q for the quarter ended July 26 shows $7.9 billion of revenue from customers headquartered in China including Hong Kong, out of $96.2 billion in total, about 8%. It was 7% for the first half of the fiscal year, 9% in fiscal 2026 and 19% in fiscal 2025, before the H20 restrictions bit. The same filing says Hopper data center shipments to China were less than 1% of the quarter’s $89 billion in data center revenue.

The higher number comes from a short seller. Culper Research argued in May that more than 20% of Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 compute revenue was driven by China through diverted chips and Southeast Asian intermediaries, the figure behind the claim that a fifth of GPU demand comes from China. It is an allegation, and it describes the same kind of diversion The Information reported. If it is right, the filings understate what a hard export regime would take from you.

The path to $100, step by step

Wall Street’s consensus for Nvidia’s fiscal year ending January 2028, the one investors call next year, is $15.91 a share in earnings on about $692 billion of revenue. At Tuesday’s close the stock trades at about 11 times that. The path assumes earnings fall in proportion to the revenue removed and that the market keeps paying the same multiple, which is generous: a company losing its founder and a market at once usually gets a lower multiple.

Step one, Huang removed, Ives’ 30%: $168.89 becomes about $118.

Step two, China closed, on Nvidia’s own 8%: next year’s earnings fall to about $14.61 a share and the stock lands near $109. That is above $100.

Step two on the short seller’s 20% instead: earnings fall to about $12.73 a share and the stock lands near $95. That is the path below $100. It needs both things to happen and the higher China number to be true. From Tuesday it is a further 44% drop.

What that does to 1,000 shares

Take a retired couple, both in their late sixties, with $2.4 million in total, most of it in index funds inside an IRA, and 1,000 Nvidia shares in a taxable account that began as 100 shares bought on January 3, 2023 at $143.15, before the 10-for-1 split in June 2024. They are a scenario; if your position is bigger or smaller, scale every figure below.

At the October 6 peak the position was worth $239,240, 10% of everything they own. Last Friday it was $186,640. Tuesday it closed at $168,890: $70,350 gone since the peak, $17,750 of it since Huang’s letter, $9,780 on Tuesday alone.

At Ives’ $118, the shares are worth $118,223, another $50,667 below Tuesday. At $109 they are worth $108,541. At $95 they are worth $94,578, which is $74,312 below Tuesday and $144,662 below the peak. Weighted by Ives’ own 15% odds, the Huang risk alone is worth about $7,600 to this couple today, a number that argues against panic and for a decision.

The tax on getting out

If you have held Nvidia for years, the gain is what keeps you in. The couple’s cost basis is $14,315, so selling everything at Tuesday’s close books a long-term gain of $154,575. With $120,000 of other taxable income, the whole gain sits in the 15% federal bracket: $23,186. The 3.8% net investment income tax applies to the part of their income above $250,000, which is $24,575 of the gain, or $934. Total federal tax $24,120, leaving $144,770 in cash before any state tax.

Set that against the paths: the tax is $24,120, the next leg costs $50,667 on Ives’ number and $74,312 on the full path. Selling half changes the arithmetic. The gain drops to $77,288, their income stays under the $250,000 line so the surtax disappears, and the tax is $11,593, leaving $72,852 in cash. The 500 shares you keep would be worth $59,111 at Ives’ price and $47,289 at the bottom of the path, and the position is back to a size that cannot hurt you.

Where the math is weak

Ives’ 25% to 30% is a judgment, and he says the likelier outcome is that Huang stays. The Enron comparison is about size, not kind: Enron’s shareholders lost everything and claimed more than $40 billion in the class action; Nvidia’s have lost 29% of a far larger company that still earns more than any company in history. The China step treats a dollar of revenue as a dollar of earnings, and Nvidia’s 10-K says it was already effectively shut out of China’s data center compute market, so part of the 8% is gaming and other products no bill touches. The consensus can move on November 17, when Nvidia reports after the close. And the stock moves on nothing: Tuesday’s 5% drop came with a hot inflation print.

The bottom line

Nvidia has lost about $1.7 trillion since October 6 and about $430 billion in the two sessions since Huang’s letter, six times what Enron was worth at its peak. Dan Ives’ 30% takes the stock to about $118 if Huang goes. Nvidia’s own filings put China at 8% of revenue, which on the same math lands near $109; only the short seller’s 20% gets it below $100, near $95. For a couple with 1,000 shares the next leg costs between $50,000 and $74,000, the tax to leave entirely is about $24,000, and selling half costs about $12,000 and ends the question. The number to watch is not the price. It is whether the board’s investigation and the defense bill turn Ives’ 15% into something larger.

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