Nvidia downgraded by Baird, dropped from Morgan Stanley’s Top Pick list as Jensen Huang scandal deepens

Nvidia spent the past few years as Wall Street’s favorite answer to almost every question about artificial intelligence. On Wednesday, two major firms decided the answer now comes with an asterisk.

Robert W. Baird downgraded the chipmaker to neutral, and Morgan Stanley pulled the stock from its Top Pick list. The moves land as investors grow uneasy about CEO Jensen Huang’s future at the company sitting at the center of the AI boom.

What the analysts actually did

Baird moved Nvidia from Outperform to Neutral on November 11, 2026. It also cut its price target from $500 to $200, a 60% reduction.

The firm pointed to three problems. First, it has limited visibility into data-center spending for 2027. Second, it flagged the potential for demand to soften after years of breakneck AI investment. Third, it cited uncertainty over whether Huang stays in the job beyond next year.

Morgan Stanley took a gentler approach. It removed Nvidia from its Top Pick list but kept an Overweight rating and a $300 price target. The bank cited the stock’s slide of more than 25% since it added Nvidia to the list on October 2.

The scandal behind the selloff

The pressure traces back to Huang’s personal life. He has admitted to an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman alleged to be a spy for Beijing.

The fallout has been swift. Nvidia’s board has launched an independent internal investigation, and the FBI has opened an inquiry.

In Washington, some have called for Huang to step down. That raises fresh questions about how dependent Nvidia is on its founder, and how tangled the company is with China.

The China piece matters because chip sales to the country already sit in a sensitive national-security zone. A CEO-level scandal with an alleged intelligence link turns a policy headache into something closer to a credibility problem.

The market damage so far

Nvidia shares closed at $168.9 on November 10. That left the stock positioned for its largest weekly decline since March 2025.

The company has shed more than $427 billion in market value over recent sessions. That loss reflects both the scandal and broader pressure across the tech sector.

Nvidia now trades at 11.4 times forward earnings.

Wall Street hasn’t jumped ship

Of the 26 analysts covering Nvidia, 25 rate it a Buy or Strong Buy.

The shift is happening at the margins. Several firms have started trimming price targets or removing Nvidia from their favored lists, even while keeping positive ratings.

Morgan Stanley’s move fits that pattern neatly. It still likes the stock. It just doesn’t want to call it the best idea in the room right now.

Baird is the outlier that actually stepped off the bullish bandwagon. Its neutral call makes it a minority voice.

Why the CEO question hits so hard

Nvidia has always been closely identified with Huang, who is as much a part of the brand as its GPUs.

Baird explicitly tied part of its downgrade to uncertainty over Huang’s tenure beyond next year. That is unusual language in an equity research note, and it signals key-person risk has moved from a footnote to a headline factor.

The board’s investigation and the FBI inquiry add an open-ended timeline.

What to watch next

The next big moment is Nvidia’s third-quarter report, expected on November 17, 2026.

Investors will likely focus on commentary on data-center demand heading into 2027, which speaks directly to Baird’s visibility concerns.