This month marked a noticeable crack in what had long seemed like Nvidia’s impenetrable armor. After years of relentless triumph and a seemingly unending upward trajectory, the semiconductor giant—and its charismatic CEO, Jensen Huang—find themselves in an unfamiliar position: on the defensive. Once accustomed to setting the pace for the technology sector, both the company and its leader are now being forced to parry doubts and manage a growing chorus of skeptics questioning the sustainability of Nvidia’s dominance.
At the start of the month, Nvidia stood at an extraordinary high point. Its stock price had achieved an all-time pinnacle, buoyed by historic spending surges in artificial intelligence from its most powerful clientele—Big Tech titans such as Meta, Microsoft, and Google. Fresh from the success of its GTC conference in Washington, Huang radiated confidence, dismissing any talk of an AI bubble as speculative. His tone was nothing short of ebullient, reflecting both the company’s financial vigor and the buoyant sentiment surrounding its AI leadership. Yet, the following weeks proved sobering. Nvidia’s market value declined by roughly 11%, transforming the narrative from one of unstoppable growth to one of vulnerability. A company once hailed for setting industry records and calming investors’ fears about over-inflated AI valuations became, almost overnight, a case study in market overextension.
The shift unfolded rapidly. Nvidia found itself countering short-sellers while also confronting intensifying competition—particularly from Google. As the month progressed, major investors who had previously championed the company began scaling back their positions. Notably, SoftBank and billionaire investor Peter Thiel opted to cash in on their holdings, exiting from what had recently become the world’s first $4 trillion market cap company. SoftBank confirmed it had completely liquidated its Nvidia stake, amounting to $5.8 billion in shares, redirecting its capital toward backing OpenAI. Though SoftBank’s chief financial officer emphasized that the divestment had “nothing to do with Nvidia itself,” the move nonetheless fueled speculation about whether investor enthusiasm for AI had reached unsustainable levels.
Unwilling to yield to market anxieties, Nvidia made a bold statement later in November. On November 19, the firm unveiled its third-quarter earnings—and far from showing weakness, it exceeded already heightened Wall Street expectations. During an analyst call, Huang responded to the persistent “AI bubble” narrative with assertive clarity, noting that, from Nvidia’s perspective, the company was witnessing realities that contradicted such fears. Initially, the market greeted these results enthusiastically, sending shares upward in after-hours trading. But optimism proved fleeting. By the next day, broader market unease resurfaced, focusing on concerns about the soaring valuations of tech firms and the sustainability of AI-related spending.
Internally, the mood was one of both pride and frustration. In remarks delivered privately to employees and later disclosed by Business Insider, Huang lamented that “the market did not appreciate” the company’s exceptional quarterly results. In a candid assessment, he acknowledged Nvidia’s paradoxical position: as the foremost standard-bearer of the AI movement, it faced a double bind. In his words, “If we delivered a bad quarter, it would be seen as evidence of an AI bubble. If we delivered a great quarter, it would be used to claim we were inflating that bubble.” Caught between triumph and suspicion, Nvidia found itself symbolizing the very ambivalence of the AI era.
The tension deepened with news of shifting alliances in the industry. Shortly after Huang’s remarks, Nvidia’s stock price slipped again when The Information reported that Google was in advanced discussions to supply Meta with billions of dollars’ worth of its proprietary AI chips. For years, Nvidia’s hardware had been celebrated as the gold standard for artificial intelligence, powering the development and operation of large language models and countless AI-powered systems across Silicon Valley and beyond. The revelation that Google might directly compete in Nvidia’s territory suggested a future in which the chipmaker’s once-unassailable market share could erode. The market reacted quickly: Nvidia’s losses effectively became Alphabet’s gains, with Google’s parent company edging closer to the $4 trillion market valuation club Nvidia had recently inaugurated. Nvidia’s public response was assertive yet measured—it congratulated Google for its innovation but reminded investors that its own chips remained “a generation ahead of the industry.” The tone, defiant but respectful, underscored the company’s determination to project strength amid emerging challenges.
These developments furnished new ammunition for one of Nvidia’s vocal critics: Michael Burry, the investor renowned from “The Big Short” for his prescient warnings ahead of the 2008 financial crisis. Throughout the month, Burry intensified his commentary on Nvidia and the broader AI sector, warning of excessive exuberance and fragile fundamentals. In a post published to his Substack, he drew a historical parallel to the dot-com era, labeling Nvidia the “Cisco of the AI bubble.” According to Burry, just as Cisco had once symbolized the infrastructure backbone of the early Internet craze, Nvidia now embodied the AI boom—providing the essential “picks and shovels” fueling a speculative gold rush. Nvidia, never one to stay silent, swiftly issued a detailed rebuttal in an internal note to Wall Street analysts. The memo challenged Burry’s analyses as mathematically flawed and contested assertions that Nvidia’s investments and client relationships amounted to circular financial dependencies. It emphasized that Nvidia’s strategic stakes represented only a small fraction of its total revenues and were negligible within the global $1 trillion in annual private capital raised. Furthermore, the company maintained that portfolio firms receiving Nvidia investment generated most of their revenue from third-party customers, not from Nvidia itself. Burry’s response was terse yet unwavering. Calling Nvidia’s defense “disappointing,” he disclosed that he continued to hold put options against the company, signaling his enduring bearish stance.
Despite the setbacks, Nvidia’s foundations remain far from crumbling. By late November, signs of recovery began to appear. The company’s shares regained modest ground, closing up 1.37% on the final Wednesday of the month. Nvidia retains its status as the most valuable company in the world by market capitalization—a position achieved through years of technological innovation and strategic foresight. Its products remain indispensable to the largest technology companies on the planet, which continue to commit billions toward the next generation of Nvidia AI processors. Jensen Huang recently described sales of the firm’s Blackwell chips as being “off the charts,” underscoring that demand for Nvidia’s technology remains ferocious. Meanwhile, CFO Colette Kress informed analysts that Nvidia expects to secure roughly half a trillion dollars in AI chip orders across 2025 and 2026, adding that this already staggering figure is likely to grow as new agreements solidify.
In sum, November served as a reminder that even the most exalted players in the artificial intelligence revolution are not immune to turbulence. The scrutiny from investors, competitors, and critics has certainly added pressure, but Nvidia continues to occupy a dominant position within the technological ecosystem. Huang, ever the optimist and strategist, reinforced this point during the company’s earnings call, declaring that “Nvidia is unlike any other accelerator.” He elaborated that the company excels across the full continuum of artificial intelligence development—from the earliest stages of model training through to post-training refinement and inference deployment. In other words, while the crown may occasionally tilt, the kingdom remains firmly under Nvidia’s stewardship—for now.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-november-challenges-google-michael-burry-ai-bubble-fears-2025-11
