Microsoft Overtakes Nvidia As World's Second-Most Valuable Company Amid Jensen Huang Controversy

Microsoft has overtaken Nvidia to become the world's second-most valuable company, after the chipmaker's shares tumbled more than 6 percent amid fresh scrutiny of chief executive Jensen Huang and his links to a businesswoman under watch by US authorities. The slide fed wider doubts over whether huge spending on AI infrastructure will deliver returns big enough to justify lofty valuations. Nvidia now sits below Microsoft in the rankings for the first time in more than a year.

Reuters reported that Nvidia was trading around $167.11 while Microsoft slipped 0.4 percent to $543.25, the first time Microsoft has ranked ahead since June 2025. The report said the two-day drop was on course to wipe out more than $470 billion in market value, a projection rather than a final figure. Reuters also reported that Huang told Nvidia employees he had been unfaithful to his wife, without giving details of the relationship.

Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation after reports that Huang may have been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort. The FBI is also examining the matter, though details are limited. President Donald Trump said that the agency was looking into it. Huang, 63, has said he remains committed to supporting US national security.

The pressure grew after The Information reported that a network linked to Alice Huang, who is not related to the Nvidia chief and is also known as Huang Le, helped route at least $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia chips to Chinese companies. The outlet estimated that about 240,000 H100, H200 and some A100 chips reached China. It said some of the computing capacity was used by firms including Alibaba and Tencent.

Alice Huang built her career in Chinese finance, with earlier roles at Shanghai Hexi Investment Management and links to HSBC's Hong Kong private bank and CITIC Securities, according to records reviewed by Reuters. She became the controlling shareholder of Singapore-based Megaspeed International in March 2023, according to C4ADS research. Nvidia lists Megaspeed as an official cloud partner in Asia-Pacific.

Reuters said there has been no public finding that Megaspeed broke US export rules, and that shipments to Indonesia by its subsidiary do not by themselves establish a violation. The allegations have not shown that Nvidia or Huang knowingly breached export controls or that company secrets were compromised.