VIZMAYA DESK · NOV 13, 2026

Nvidia lost $490 billion in four days. The claim behind it is worth $7.5 billion.

Nobody has proven that claim. Here is the whole story in plain words, and why that gap matters.

The verdict

The affair is proven.

The chip smuggling is not.

Both facts hold at once.

Stock value lost, Nov 6 to Nov 12

$490B

That is about 65 times the $7.5B of chips people are arguing about.

1 · what is at stake
A round, shiny silicon wafer, the flat disc that chips are cut from
A silicon wafer. Hundreds of chips are cut from one disc. Photo: Peellden / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

First, what does Nvidia sell?

AI does not run on magic. It runs on chips.

Nvidia makes the best ones. $7.5B divided by the 240,000 chips in the claim is about $31,000 a chip.

Taipei 101 tower rising above the city of Taipei
Taipei. Most of the world's top chips are made in Taiwan. Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
2 · the rule
The Herbert C. Hoover Building in Washington, home of the US Commerce Department
The Commerce Department building in Washington. Photo: APK / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The US says: not to China.

Washington fears the best AI chips could help China's army.

So top chips going to China need permission. An office inside Commerce checks that.

The rule is simple.

Following it is the hard part.

3 · the loophole question
Rows of server racks inside a data centre
Chips live in racks like these, inside data centres. Photo: Carl Lender from Sunrise, USA / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

A chip has no GPS.

A company in Malaysia buys chips. That is legal.

If it quietly passes them on to a buyer in China, that is not. The seller may never see that second step.

Renting makes it blurrier.

Selling computing time on chips inside a Malaysian data centre is legal. Shipping the chips to China is not.

From the outside, the two can look alike.

Singapore's business district at dusk
Singapore's business district. Megaspeed was a Singapore firm. Photo: Basile Morin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Kuala Lumpur skyline with the Petronas Towers
Kuala Lumpur. Megaspeed's Malaysian arm was Speedmatrix. Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Container ships at Pasir Panjang Container Terminal in Singapore
Container ships at Singapore's port, a global hub for trade. Photo: Icepinner / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
4 · the company at the centre
A Supermicro blade server, a computer built to hold chips
A server of the kind that holds chips. Super Micro builds them. Photo: Dmitry Nosachev / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

One firm. $4.8 billion.

Megaspeed is a Singapore company. Alice Huang was its CEO and chair.

Reports say its Malaysian arm, Speedmatrix, bought at least $4.8B of Nvidia hardware from June 2024 to Feb 2026.

The Pudong skyline in Shanghai, China
Shanghai. The question is whether chips ended up in China. Photo: King of Hearts / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

A real case exists

In March 2026, US prosecutors charged a Super Micro co-founder and two others over $2.5B of diverted servers.

Nvidia and Super Micro were not accused.

Fourteen days. One news story to one resignation.

  1. OCT 29The New York Times reports the relationship.
  2. NOV 5A big AI stock sell-off. Nvidia is hit with the rest.
  3. NOV 8Nvidia's CEO admits an affair. The board opens a review.
  4. NOV 9 TO 10Reports say Nvidia's top lawyer contacted Commerce in 2025. A new claim says $7.5B of chips reached China.
  5. NOV 12The CEO steps down. Singapore publishes its findings.

Sources: TechCrunch timeline, Nvidia 8-K.

5 · what is proven, what is not

Singapore, Nov 12 · primary source

What Singapore actually said.

Police opened a probe in Feb 2025. Alice Huang was checked for giving false information, not for spying.

In Feb 2026 they found too little evidence of crimes. They gave her a stern warning and a ban on coming back.

Singapore MHA statement

Not every claim weighs the same.

  • PROVENThe affair and the resignation. Nvidia's own filing.
  • PROVENSingapore probed her for false information. Singapore says so.
  • REPORTED$4.8B of purchases, and the lawyer's call to Commerce. Several outlets, mostly unnamed sources.
  • ONE SOURCEThe $7.5B of chips reaching China. The Information only. Reuters could not confirm. Megaspeed denies it.
  • UNNAMEDThat she worked for Chinese intelligence. Unnamed US officials. China calls it groundless. Singapore says it never probed spying.

Grades are Vizmaya's. Sources: CNBC, NBC.

The market priced a bigger problem than the claim.

Sources: DOJ via CNBC; Yahoo Finance price data. Bars start at zero.

So why the fall?

$7.5B is only 6.9% of one quarter's forecast sales.

The fear is bigger: lost licences, tougher rules, and a company with no named boss.

The money did not vanish. It moved to rivals.

Source: StockAnalysis.com, daily closes. Nov 6 close = 100. AMD and Broadcom also fell hard on Nov 5, so part of the rise is a bounce.

6 · the questions left
The west front of the US Capitol in Washington
The US Capitol. Two Democrats have now written to Commerce. Photo: Martin Falbisoner / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Questions about Washington.

Reports say Nvidia's top lawyer contacted Commerce during a 2025 probe. The reason is unclear.

A Democratic letter asks why chip approvals continued after warnings. It also notes about $26M in Nvidia donations to Trump projects. A question is not a finding.

What nobody has shown yet.

Where the 240,000 chips went.

Whether they were sold or rented.

Who the espionage claim comes from. And whether Nvidia's own review finds anything Nvidia missed.

Three dates to watch.

Sources and method

Prices are daily closes. Where a fact rests on unnamed sources, we say so. We did not read the NYT, Bloomberg or The Information pieces directly. We read the coverage that cites them.

More stories: vizmaya.fyi/stories. Photos credited under each picture. vizmaya desk, Nov 13, 2026.

The one-line version

A real scandal and an unproven crime got mixed together. The market paid for both.

  1. A week that cost $490 billion

    Nvidia's stock value fell by about $490 billion in four days. The story behind it mixes a real scandal with a claim nobody has proven. Follow the tour, or drag the board yourself.

  2. The verdict first

    The affair is proven. The chip smuggling is not. Keep both in your head.

  3. What does Nvidia sell?

    The chips that run AI. They cost about $31,000 each in this story. That is why people care where they go.

  4. One rule

    The US limits which top chips can go to China, because they could help its army. A Commerce office checks.

  5. A chip has no GPS

    Buying chips in Malaysia is legal. Passing them to China is not. The seller often cannot see the second step.

  6. One firm, $4.8 billion

    Reports say Megaspeed's Malaysian arm bought at least $4.8B of Nvidia hardware. A related US case over $2.5B of servers is real, but it names neither Nvidia nor Super Micro as wrongdoers.

  7. Fourteen days

    From a news story on Oct 29 to a resignation on Nov 12. Two more dates are still ahead.

  8. What Singapore said

    It checked her for false information, not spying. It found too little evidence of crimes. That is the strongest document in the whole story.

  9. Not every claim weighs the same

    Some claims are proven. Some come from one source. The $7.5B figure sits near the bottom of that ladder.

  10. The numbers do not match

    $490B lost against $7.5B alleged. The market is pricing fear, not a proven loss.

  11. Where the money went

    AMD rose 30.3% and Broadcom 24.1% since Nov 6. Nvidia fell 11.0%. Investors moved their bets.

  12. The questions left

    Why did Nvidia's lawyer call Commerce? Where did the chips go? We will know more by Nov 26.

  13. The short version

    A real scandal and an unproven crime got mixed together. The market paid for both. Sources are on the board.