Dan Ives values Nvidia at $300 a share with Jensen Huang, $225 without him

Dan Ives has put a price on Jensen Huang. With Huang running Nvidia, the tech analyst says the stock is worth $300 a share. Without him, that figure falls to $225.

The $75 question

Ives, of Yorkville Ives & Co., maintains an Outperform rating on Nvidia (NVDA). His $300 price target depends on Huang staying in charge.

If Huang were to leave, Ives indicated the shares could fall by 25-30%. That would put the stock at roughly $225 under his framework. He attributes the potential drop to significant “key-person” risk.

Ives also estimates a 15% probability that Huang is removed. That is not a base case. It is also not a number analysts usually attach to the CEO of a company this central to the AI trade.

He warned that a removal could hit the stock immediately. His reasoning ties back to Huang’s integral role in shaping Nvidia’s strategic vision.

Why this is coming up now

The warning arrives as Nvidia faces scrutiny over its leadership tied to a personal scandal involving Huang. The situation has raised questions about succession at a company whose identity is closely bound to its founder.

Markets have not ignored it. Nvidia shares have declined nearly 30% since peaking around $239 in October 2026. By mid-November, the stock was hovering around $169.

Put differently, the stock already trades well below the $225 level that Ives assigns to a Nvidia without Huang. Investors are pricing in a lot of anxiety. Ives is arguing that much of it may be misplaced as long as the CEO stays put.

Wall Street is split on how worried to be. Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo have maintained $300 price targets of their own. Baird, by contrast, significantly lowered its target amid the ongoing uncertainty.

The fundamentals have not blinked

While the leadership story dominates headlines, the operating numbers look like they belong to a different company. Nvidia’s Q2 revenue reached $96.2 billion, a 106% increase year over year.

Data center revenue did most of the heavy lifting. That segment surged 117% to $89 billion.

Gross margins stand at 75%. That means Nvidia keeps about three quarters of every revenue dollar after the direct cost of making its products.

Looking ahead, revenue growth of around 70% is forecast for FY2028.

A founder-led company in a founder-shaped market

Huang co-founded Nvidia and has steered it from a graphics chip maker into the dominant supplier of AI semiconductors. That history is exactly why the key-person discount exists.

What this means for investors

The core takeaway from Ives’s framework is that Nvidia’s valuation now has a binary element. One outcome keeps Huang in the CEO seat and, in Ives’s view, supports a $300 target. The other removes him and pulls fair value down toward $225.

His 15% probability estimate suggests he sees the first outcome as far more likely. But the market’s recent behavior shows how quickly sentiment can swing on headlines about Huang’s status.

The analyst split also matters. When Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo hold at $300 while Baird cuts sharply, the disagreement is mostly about how to weigh leadership risk.