Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told employees this week that the company has been pushed into a losing position due to growing fears of an AI bubble, even as it continues to post impressive results, according to audio of a comprehensive internal meeting reviewed by Business insider.
“The market did not appreciate our amazing quarter,” Huang said Thursday, less than 24 hours after Nvidia reported another set of record profits and said it had a “vision” of half a trillion dollars in revenue for the rest of 2025 and 2026.
Instead of rewarding the rhythm, investors staged a shocking reversal that saw stocks rise briefly on Thursday before falling, pulling the broader AI trade lower by the end of the session.
Huang said expectations around Nvidia have become so extreme that Wall Street now sees risk in both directions.
“If we have a bad quarter, that’s evidence of an AI bubble. If we have a great quarter, we’re feeding the AI bubble,” he told employees. “If we had been just a hair’s breadth away, if it had seemed even a little creaky, the whole world would have collapsed.”
The comments offer a rare glimpse into how the face of the AI boom views the growing backlash to it, and how closely he is watching the surprising market response.
A quarter blast raised investors’ fears
On paper, Nvidia gave investors everything they asked for. The chipmaker reported another increase in sales of its data center processors, the stuff that powers big AI models (and Nvidia’s revenue), and raised its guidance for the current quarter. Investors were saying this was the kind of performance expected to kick off another six-month rally.
Instead, the stock’s initial jump gave way to a broader sell-off. Nvidia shares rose as much as 5% early in Thursday’s session before closing down about 3%, with traders exiting the big tech names most associated with the artificial intelligence boom.
This reversal extended what has become a painful stretch of so-called AI trading. After months of a stunning rally, investors are increasingly concerned that tech giants are spending too much on data centers, graphics processing units, and networking equipment, with no guarantee they can earn enough revenue to recoup those investments. Some are also focusing on the complex, debt-laden financing structures that lie behind building AI infrastructure, as credit markets begin to sound early warning signals.
On top of that are new major tensions. The closing-delayed US jobs report, released the same morning, showed stronger-than-expected hiring in September, but a higher unemployment rate; These conflicting data did little to clarify whether the Fed would cut interest rates in December.
Some investors are watching different closely Data From Fed bosses to try to read the tea leaves, but with earnings season over and no clear catalyst between now and the Fed’s next decision, it appears many other investors are using volatility to take profits from the previous year’s rally – and exit the market.
“The broader narrative is not broken; it is simply being tested now,” Nationwide’s Mark Hackett said. Bloomberg. “Periods like these often act as a release valve rather than indicating a true trend reversal.”
“We’re basically bringing the planet together.”‘
Inside Nvidia, Huang suggested that no one should be surprised that investors are nervous when much of the AI story is pitched to one company.
He pointed to online memes that jokingly describe Nvidia as the backbone of the global economy and the only thing standing between the United States and a recession.
“Have you seen some of them?” Ask the staff. “We’re basically holding the planet together, and that’s not right.”
This level of mythology has helped push Nvidia’s market cap into the stratosphere, Making it the most valuable public company in the world. But Hwang explained that he turned every day’s profits into high-profile work.
“Expectations are so high that if we get even a little wrong, people think the whole story is over,” he added.
However, Huang rejected the idea that Nvidia is responsible for the more complex parts of the AI business. He stressed that the company’s mission is to build the computing infrastructure that others need, not to monitor how market prices are requested.
He jokes about losing $500 billion
Amid the pressure, Huang kept the meeting light with graveyard-whistling humor about Nvidia’s wild fluctuations.
He joked about the “good old days” when the company had a market value of $5 trillion – a hilarious exaggeration at the peak of its actual valuation – before pointing out how much value has evaporated in recent weeks.
He said: “No one in history has lost $500 billion in a few weeks.” “You have to have a lot of value to lose $500 billion in a few weeks.”
Huang told employees he was “thrilled” with the quarter and proud of their work, stressing that the company’s core business remains strong even if markets are punishing them for it.
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