Nvidia Probes Its Own CEO as Rivals and Midterm Fallout Pile Up

Nvidia has opened an investigation into its own chief executive, according to Semafor, a new headache for the world's most valuable chip company. The probe lands on top of a growing pile of challenges, from politics to rivals to a swelling pack of well-funded startups. Semafor's report did not detail what triggered the investigation.

Start with Washington. Huge Democratic wins in the midterm elections threaten to slow the pace of the US AI infrastructure buildout, which has been a key source of demand for Nvidia's chips. Any drag on data center construction hits the company's order book directly.

The competition is multiplying fast. Amazon opened talks this year to offer its custom-made AI chips for use in other companies' data centers. Google is ramping up sales of its Tensor Processing Units.

The software side is moving in too. Both Anthropic and OpenAI have promoted their AI models' abilities to design semiconductors, a pitch that chips away at the idea that cutting-edge chip design is Nvidia's alone.

Then there's the money chasing Nvidia's crown. A wave of chipmaking startups is pulling in record levels of funding, all of them angling to dethrone the incumbent.