Thursday morning the Mag 7 stopped being a neat AI club and turned into a succession story. Nvidia (NVDA) said its board accepted Jensen Huang's resignation as president, chief executive, and director. CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO while she keeps the finance job. Longtime director Harvey Jones becomes the company's first board chair. The AI trade just lost the founder who sold the world on accelerated computing for three decades.
Through the latest session into Mag 7 Thursday, Nvidia was the clear weak link near minus 9% for the week and about minus 26% over the past month. Tesla (TSLA) owned the best week near plus 14%. Alphabet (GOOGL) bounced about 6.5% off a rough month. Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) each gained about 3.4%. Meta Platforms (META) was up about 3%. Microsoft (MSFT) slipped about 2.4%. Apple still leads the Mag 7 year to date near plus 31%.
The boardroom move followed days of reporting on Huang's personal life, including an admitted relationship with a businesswoman U.S. authorities have linked to Chinese intelligence concerns, plus a separate reported relationship with a senior Nvidia executive. Shares opened sharply lower and at one point threatened a multi-hundred-billion-dollar market-cap hit. Here is the board with that story still dominating the tape.
The Scoreboard
Prices and moves as of the latest regular session into Mag 7 Thursday, November 12, 2026.
Stock | YTD | Past Month | Key Catalyst This Week |
|---|---|---|---|
TSLA | -10.8% | +6.4% | Best Mag 7 week; rebound tape |
GOOGL | -4.5% | -13.4% | Bounce; TPU alternative talk |
AAPL | +31.3% | +3.8% | YTD leader; cash-machine seat |
AMZN | +18.8% | +5.9% | Steady week; AWS/AI seat |
META | -4.0% | -15.4% | Green week after rough month |
MSFT | +10.6% | -2.0% | Soft week; Azure still central |
NVDA | -12.8% | -25.6% | Huang out; Kress interim CEO |
Nvidia Without Jensen
Nvidia's press release is short and final. Huang resigns effective immediately. Kress runs the company on an interim basis and stays CFO. The board will search internal and external candidates for a permanent CEO. Jones, the former Synopsys (SNPS) chief who has sat on Nvidia's board for decades, takes the new chair role. Earnings are still scheduled for next Tuesday, November 17, with prior guidance calling for roughly $108 billion in quarterly revenue, give or take 2%.
The market did not wait for the next call. Nvidia traded near $165 into Thursday after a week that already included a board probe, law-firm hiring, and a multi-day slide from the October highs near $240. Early Thursday trade knocked the stock as much as low double digits at the open before losses narrowed. Rival chip names Broadcom (AVGO) and AMD (AMD) jumped as traders looked for AI exposure without the Nvidia leadership overhang. Neo-cloud names tied tightly to Nvidia financing stayed under pressure in the same tape.
My read is blunt. Nvidia still owns the GPU franchise and the CUDA software moat. Those do not vanish because the founder leaves. What does change is the sales theater, the customer financing story people nicknamed the Bank of AI, and the single-person brand that made every data-center tour feel like a product launch. Kress is a known operator from Cisco (CSCO) and Microsoft finance seats before Nvidia. Operators can keep the trains running. Vision and political cover are different jobs. Until a permanent CEO is named, every hyperscaler capex plan and every circular financing rumor will get a second look.
Tesla Leads the Rebound. Apple Holds the Year.
Tesla (TSLA) closed near $391 after the strongest Mag 7 week near plus 14%. The bounce sits on top of the late-October free-cash-flow surprise and the FSD attach story, and it also caught a risk-on rebound after last week's broader tech washout. Elon Musk publicly said it would be an honor to hire Huang if he becomes available. That is theater. The stock move is real money rotating inside the same seven names.
Apple (AAPL) sits near $356 and still owns the Mag 7 year-to-date lead near plus 31%. After its early-November report, the market keeps treating Apple more like a cash machine with pricing power than a pure AI factory build. That is why Apple often looks like the safe seat when Nvidia drama hits. Alphabet (GOOGL) bounced about 6.5% on the week even after a rough month near minus 13%. Coverage quickly framed Google TPUs and Broadcom custom silicon as alternatives if Nvidia's customer financing or leadership becomes less aggressive. Amazon (AMZN) held near $269 with a solid week and remains the AWS seat in the group. Meta (META) was green on the week near $624 after a hard month. Microsoft (MSFT) slipped to about $523 as investors weighed Azure growth against Anthropic product competition headlines and the broader AI spending debate.
Bottom Line
This Mag 7 week is about leadership risk at the center of the AI trade. Nvidia still has the chips and the software stack, but it no longer has the founder who defined the company. Tesla took the rebound money. Apple still leads the year. Next Tuesday's Nvidia results will be the first public test of Kress on the call, and the permanent CEO search will decide whether this is a one-week shock or a longer re-rating of the whole AI complex.
Comments
Log in or sign up to join the conversation.