Nvidia director Mark Stevens sold $946 million of stock with no trading plan before the Huang scandal

SEC filings↗ show Mark Stevens, an Nvidia▼−3.21% — Nvidia, down 3.21 percent today director since 2008 and the largest individual shareholder after Jensen Huang and his wife Lori, sold about 4.2 million shares for roughly $946 million between Aug ¹²⁴. 31 and Sept ¹²⁴. 18 ¹²⁴. The sales ran in three tranches priced from $220 to $234 ¹².

No Rule 10b5-1 plan, the prearranged schedule that shields insiders from timing questions, covered any of it ¹². Jensen Huang's $925 million of sales last year ran under one, announced six months ahead ¹². The filings drew 4,635 upvotes on Reddit on Sunday↗ ³.

He sold before a $1.7 trillion fall

Nvidia has lost more than 30% since its Oct ⁴. 6 record, erasing more than $1.7 trillion in market value ⁴. Friday closed its sixth straight weekly decline, the longest streak since 2012; near $163 on Nov ²⁴. 13, the stock traded at about 12 times expected earnings, its cheapest since 2012 ²⁴.

Stevens sold above $220 before any of it, days after a July-quarter report that lifted the stock about 10% on $96.2 billion of revenue, up about 106% from a year earlier ²⁵. His remaining 27.5 million shares have since lost more than $1.5 billion ¹. He sold roughly one share in eight and kept the rest ¹².

$2.1 billion arrived into the fall

Huang resigned Nov. 12 after reports of affairs, one with a woman U.S. intelligence reportedly suspects was recruited by China's top spy agency ⁴⁸. Retail money arrived on the way down: a net $1.6 billion in the three sessions ended Nov↗ ⁶. 11, the biggest three-day spree in at least a year by J.P ⁶. Morgan's tally, plus $465 million into 2x-leveraged Nvidia ETFs ⁶.

Leo KoGuan, the Singapore-based billionaire who says he has put $1.3 billion into Nvidia since March, froze his buying after the exit with one line: "No further investment without Jensen" ⁴⁷. Brad Gerstner of Altimeter and Gavin Baker of Atreides, holding $2.13 billion combined, asked the board on Nov ⁸⁴. 13 for a slow, deliberate search that keeps Huang's return an option, and a petition Elon Musk signed has passed 100,000 names ⁸⁴.

Selling without a plan is not a crime

Selling with no plan is legal, and "not necessarily a red flag on its own"; insiders sell for many reasons, and Stevens kept about seven shares in eight ². No source alleges he traded on anything he knew.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is asking a different question, aimed at the company rather than the director: did Nvidia know its client, and was it "selling to what were obviously pass-through shell companies" ⁹?

The client is Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia chip customer the Justice Department is investigating over whether it redirected restricted AI chips to China ⁸. "Anyone at the company" should be held accountable, Bessent said Nov. 13 on CNBC↗ ⁹.

Nov. 17 prices the succession

Nvidia reports third-quarter results Tuesday under interim CEO Colette Kress, the CFO of 13 years ⁴⁸. House committee chairs have called Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter to appear Dec. 2 ⁴, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testifies before the Senate Banking Committee on Dec. 10 ⁸.

If the print prices the succession and the chip-leakage questions lower, the loss lands on the money that arrived after the director left. Stevens sold between $220 and $234; the stock trades near $163, and the $2.1 billion in between is what Tuesday puts at risk ¹²⁶.