CNBC's Jim Cramer leveled sharp criticism at former Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang on Thursday, accusing him of endangering the chipmaker's future. "Did he betray you, the shareholders?" Cramer asked. "Yes. End of story."
Huang stepped down on Thursday morning after reports emerged of an affair with an Nvidia executive who reported directly to him. Only hours later, Reuters reported that he had carried on an "intimate relationship" with a second employee. The disclosures followed Huang's admission days earlier of an affair with an executive at a Singapore-based cloud computing company whom U.S. intelligence agencies suspect of spying for China. Nvidia's longtime finance chief, Colette Kress, was named interim CEO, a move Cramer described as necessary to shield the company from additional fallout.
The turmoil hit the stock hard. Nvidia shares closed Thursday down more than 4%, after sliding over 14% at their morning lows. The session's decline pushed the company's losses for the year to 12%.
Even so, Cramer contended that Nvidia's prospects reach further than the executive who helped build it into one of the most valuable companies on the planet. "There won't be a better Nvidia, just a different one [without Huang]," he said, picturing a company that runs with tighter organization and greater discipline in its investments.
Under Huang, Nvidia assembled a wide-ranging equity portfolio, including a $5 billion stake in Intel in 2025 and a $2 billion investment in AI cloud provider CoreWeave earlier this year. Those holdings were part of Huang's strategy to cement Nvidia's position across the AI industry. Speaking during the CNBC Investing Club's Morning Meeting livestream on Thursday, Cramer recalled pressing Kress to trim the Intel and CoreWeave stakes, only to hear that Huang wanted to keep them. He suggested fresh leadership could allocate capital more carefully, potentially selling some investments and channeling the proceeds into larger stock buybacks.
Cramer voiced strong confidence in Kress, citing her deep command of Nvidia's operations and finances, and said she is well placed to steady the company while investigations surrounding Huang stretch from the boardroom to Washington, D.C. Nvidia did not respond to CNBC's request for comment on Cramer's remarks, and Heller, the crisis public relations firm Huang reportedly hired as early as last year, also did not respond.
Cramer said Nvidia's core business remains solid, pointing to its large cash reserves and expectations for a strong earnings report Tuesday evening, though he warned that even robust quarterly numbers might not calm investors amid the uncertainty. Investigations into Huang's conduct and potential violations of U.S. chip export restrictions could bring sanctions that damage Nvidia's international operations. At the same time, rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices are advancing their own AI chips, and AMD shares jumped almost 6% on Thursday, their fifth consecutive winning session.
Those risks have pushed Cramer toward caution on the stock, despite the sizable gains Nvidia has delivered over the years for his Charitable Trust, the portfolio of 32 stocks managed by the Club. On Tuesday, as doubts about Huang's future mounted, the Club cut Nvidia to a hold-equivalent rating. "Don't ever turn a successful investment into an unsuccessful trade," he said, advising longtime holders with large gains to consider locking in some profits rather than risk giving them back, noting that several analysts have already downgraded the stock from buy to hold.
Still, Cramer cautioned against abandoning Nvidia entirely, highlighting its deep engineering bench and multiyear product roadmap as reasons it can remain at the forefront of AI without Huang. The "Mad Money" host also compared the moment to Apple's handover from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook, suggesting Nvidia could flourish under a capable successor with a different management style that preserves its technological edge.
