In our Tuesday piece on data centers, we briefly mentioned that Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s CEO, had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy. It since came out that he had (at least) two more affairs, both with employees, and the board ousted him on Thursday.
Why is this relevant to an economics newsletter? A few reasons:
NVIDIA, at the very center of the AI boom and arguably the most important company in the world right now, has lost nearly $500 billion in market cap over the past week.
It’s a nervy time for the AI/data center boom given last week’s election results, so, not a great time for a shake-up at, again, arguably the most important company in the world.
That shake-up could be particularly tumultuous because Jensen Huang somewhat infamously had 50 direct reports, which is about 5-10x more than a typical CEO would have.
There’s an economic/geopolitical aspect to this regarding ostensibly banned chip sales to China, the affair with the Chinese spy, White House knowledge of the affair, Howard Lutnick, a $25 million donation to the White House Ballroom project, and White House approval of those sales.
Honeypotted CEO aside, this week gave us a ton of influential news and data releases, including a few not-so-great updates on inflation, some housing stats, and more.
Monday
Oil Stuff
Both gas and diesel prices fell this past week, with gas prices at their lowest level since July. Expect further declines next week.
Treasury Yields
Treasury yields—a good proxy for borrowing costs—bounced this week, with the 10-year back above 5%. Blame hot inflation data (discussed at length below).
