Nvidia board director Mark Stevens sold about 4.2 million shares for close to $1 billion in late summer, with no trading plan in place, weeks before the scandal that ended with Jensen Huang's resignation.
The sales came in three steps, and the three add up to roughly $947 million. From August 31 to September 2, with shares between $220 and $226, he raised $411 million. A second tranche of $236 million followed over the next couple of days at $227 to $234. The last sale, on September 18 at about $220 a share, brought in around $300 million.
The first sales came about two months before the end-of-October accusation that Huang had "close ties" to an alleged Chinese spy. The last came about six weeks before it. Shares were near $205 when the story broke, slid to $178.67 after Huang admitted the affair without naming the other party, and hit $151.09 after a second affair surfaced and Huang resigned a few hours later. That is a drop of about 26%. At the time of writing they traded at $162.85.
The contrast is with Huang's own sale last year. He sold up to six million shares for about $925 million, but announced it six months ahead under a Rule 10b5-1 plan, a pre-filed schedule of sales that makes it hard to claim the seller acted on private information. Stevens had no such cover. Selling as a director is not a crime, and the case for suspicion is thin on the facts given. He still holds about 27.5 million shares, making him the second-largest shareholder after Jensen and Lori Huang, and that stake has lost more than $1.5 billion in a quarter. Someone who saw the fall coming would have had every reason to sell more.
Plans like Huang's exist so that questions about timing never come up. Stevens's sales show what it looks like when they do.