Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday after two alleged extramarital affairs surfaced and the company he led for 33 years placed him under investigation — and the shockwave lands days before Anthropic's IPO at a targeted $1.4 trillion valuation, expected as soon as next week.

Huang built Nvidia into one of the world's most influential companies by making the computing chips that power top AI models. His sudden exit ripples across the whole industry. For Anthropic, it cuts both ways.

The bad news first: Nvidia's stock dropped Thursday, and Anthropic had said it would take $10 billion in investment from the chipmaker. The wider AI sector loses, in Huang, a top financier and pitchman. Neither Anthropic nor Nvidia responded to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Will Nvidia's $10 billion commitment survive?

Mandeep Singh, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst covering Anthropic, wrote in a note published before the ouster that Nvidia's IPO-day stake "could face heightened scrutiny" if Huang were removed. CFO Colette Kress now leads the company in the interim.

"A leadership transition could prompt Nvidia's board to reassess the size, timing or strategic rationale of the commitment to Anthropic," Singh wrote. "Any delay or reduction could weaken an important signal of support for Anthropic's IPO pricing at around $1.4 trillion, though commitments from Google and other strategic investors might limit the financing impact."

Harrison Rolfes, an analyst at PitchBook, expects the deal to close as planned.

"It has nothing to do with Jensen's overall control," he told Business Insider. "It's just: 'We made the investment, and we're good to go.'"

His bigger worry is dealmaking speed. Anthropic's prospectus lists a $45 billion agreement with Nscale and a $41 billion agreement with Lambda — both neoclouds (AI data center developers), both for Nvidia chips, and both reliant on Nvidia's financial backing. Rolfes expects existing deals to stand and later ones to slow.

"Instead of, let's say, Dario or Elon Musk just calling Jensen to say, 'Hey, I need this by whenever,' it's now going to have to go through the bureaucracy of Nvidia," he said.

Kunjan Sobhani, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst covering Nvidia, agrees: commitments stay, but future rounds may decelerate because Huang drove dealmaking personally.

Who wins the Washington fight now?

Amodei and Huang clashed for years over US chip export policy. In a 2025 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Amodei called export controls "a valuable tool in slowing China's AI development," arguing Trump's actions would "help determine whether democracies or autocracies lead the next technological era."

Huang lobbied the opposite way. He secured Trump administration approval, with individual Commerce Department sign-offs, to sell H200 chips in China. At Davos last February, Amodei likened that policy to "selling nuclear weapons to North Korea." Huang called the comparison "lunacy" in a podcast.

The power balance now shifts. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs is probing Huang's relationship with Chinese executive Alice Huang, whose Singapore-based firm bought many Nvidia chips; Politico reported Thursday he has agreed to testify. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle back stronger chip export restrictions — a clear win for Amodei.

Huang also championed open-source models, which compete with Anthropic's closed ones. Sobhani expects Nvidia to keep supporting them — it suits the business — though "the investment in that area could slow down."

Does Anthropic's chip strategy look stronger?

Yes. Anthropic's IPO pitch never leaned solely on Nvidia: it also uses chips from Amazon Web Services, Google, Broadcom, and AMD. Both Nvidia rivals saw their stocks jump on Thursday's news.

Tighter export restrictions, if imposed, would likely push more Nvidia chips into American data centers — expanding the compute pool Anthropic buys as it scales. Sobhani doesn't expect Huang's exit to affect Nvidia chips' performance, competitiveness, or supply in the short to medium term.

The timing is tight. Nvidia reports earnings Tuesday, its first without Huang, and Anthropic's IPO follows days later.

"We'll get more color next week about what really we should expect," Sobhani said.