Meta: YouGov data reveals that Nvidia’s brand image has taken a hit in the wake of its former CEO’s extramarital conduct.
On October 29, The New York Times reported that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had a “close relationship” with a businesswoman who had allegedly been recruited by Chinese intelligence services as a spy. Just over a week later, he confirmed having an intimate relationship with the woman in question. Although the company’s board of directors affirmed their confidence in Huang, the embattled chief executive resigned on November 12 as details of another affair with a direct subordinate came to light.
The chipmaker’s share price slumped in the wake of these indiscretions – but has the scandal impacted consumer perceptions of the brand?
YouGov BrandIndex allows us to explore initial reaction to the Nvidia story among American consumers. Our data shows that between October 29 and November 13, the company’s Buzz scores, a measure of whether the public have heard anything positive or negative about a brand in the past two weeks, fell from 5.4 to -8.8: a decline of 14.2 points. Relatedly, Word of Mouth Exposure scores – which track whether consumers have discussed a story with friends and family – rose from 7.3 to 12.3.
Beyond simply taking notice of the story, it appears to have had an impact on Nvidia’s image. Impression scores, which measure overall sentiment towards a company, have fallen 9.4 points from 10.5 to 1.1.
Finally, Nvidia’s overall brand health, as measured by Index scores, halved – deteriorating from 10.2 to 5.2 (-5.0) since The New York Times’ initial story.
For Nvidia, the key question now may be whether Huang’s departure as CEO will mitigate the damage these stories are doing to the chipmaker’s brand.
Methodology
YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. Scores are reported as net scores from –100 to +100 based on daily surveys of US adults. Data is weighted using a propensity scoring methodology with targets from the American Community Survey (ACS) to ensure representation by age, gender, race, education, and region. Figures are shown as a 1-week moving average with sample size ranging from 614 to 658 between October 29 2026 to November 13 2026.
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