• Markets: Chip stocks showed some signs of life last Friday, but they’re still down 29% over the past five weeks, according to the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and Yahoo Finance. Big news out of Nvidia yesterday might further impact it today (more on that just below).
• Stock spotlight: The Hot Light is on at Krispy Kreme. The donut-maker is up nearly 39% over the past month, easily outpacing tech giants like Apple.

unexpected turn

Nadja Wohlleben/Getty Images

Yesterday, Nvidia revealed that it was investigating co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang after he told the board that Alice Huang (no relation), his close business contact whom US intelligence determined to be a spy for the Chinese government, was also his extramarital affair partner.

In a statement to employees, Jensen Huang said, “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

A company spokesman revealed that Huang would remain in charge during the probe, and its board said it had “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised.”

Potential ramifications

Lascivious details aside, the situation offers a unique test for the massively valuable semiconductor company. According to Bloomberg:

• Nvidia’s unconventional organizational structure, designed by Huang—who famously dreamed up his company at a Denny’s—has the CEO overseeing about 60 direct reports tasked with “rapidly implementing his decisions.”
• Huang has said that keeps the company agile, but it also makes him hard to replace. He has stated publicly that he wants to maintain his role for decades to come.
• Nvidia doesn’t have a public succession plan, and Huang’s “relentless” schedule means no one is prepared to replace him promptly if the board ever seeks his removal.

This complicates the US–China race for AI supremacy. President Trump has blocked Nvidia’s most advanced chips, Blackwell and Rubin, from entering China. And even before this revelation, Alice Huang’s company, Megaspeed, was investigated by the Commerce Department on suspicion of smuggling the advanced chips into China.

Asked about Huang’s affair last night, President Trump, who has consulted with the Nvidia CEO on AI policy, told reporters, “He has done an amazing job for our country” and that Huang should stay on as CEO.

Big picture: Nvidia is largely seen as the most powerful driver and beneficiary of the AI stock market boom. Last October, it became the first publicly traded company to reach a valuation of $5 trillion.—HVL

      

Sponsored By Aura House

The way your home smells is just as important as it looks. So don’t throw off your feng shui with something that smells fun-kay.

Aura House is a cold-air diffuser that helps make your house smell like a resort hotel by releasing one of five clean, relaxing fragrances. There’s no heat, flame, or water, and it’s safe for pets and plants.

Each bottle lasts 30 days. A single oil can outlast an entire candle collection and deliver consistent whole-room coverage the entire time. Plus, there are no parabens, phthalates, or hidden chemicals, so it’s Sephora-clean certified.

Holiday special: Use code BREW10 for 10% off. Fair warning: People may start asking if you can host dinners.

World

Tour de headlines

💥 UFC CEO will meet with President Trump today after (jokingly) being offered press secretary role. On Saturday, Trump said on Truth Social that Dana White, the head of UFC and “a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States” and implored him, “Dana, please take the job!” White subsequently told reporters that he had a meeting scheduled at the White House today, although CNN reported that an anonymous source close to White said he had turned down the job. Trump and White brought a UFC fight to the White House’s South Lawn, called UFC Freedom 250, on June 14, Trump’s 80th birthday. White also spoke at the 2016, 2020, and 2024 Republican National Conventions. Last night, Trump told reporters he was kidding, then added, “But it was an example of something where I was kidding, and then people said, you know, that’s actually a pretty good idea.”

🇮🇱 Israel’s president gave opposition leader Eisenkot first chance to form government. Israeli President Isaac Herzog gave Gadi Eisenkot, the former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and leader of the centrist Yashar party, the first chance to form a coalition government after neither his bloc nor Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s secured a majority in the country’s parliamentary elections on Oct. 27. Eisenkot now has six weeks to form a government, a fraught endeavor that experts say will require fragile negotiations, compromises, and/or broken promises. Options before Eisenkot include entering a power-sharing agreement with Netanyahu, relying on support from two Arab-led parties, or forming a coalition with ultra-Orthodox religious parties, which insist on military exemption. Eisenkot campaigned on equal military service.

⚠️ Voluntary recall of toddler snack sent Once Upon a Farm stock tumbling. The product involved is Tractor Wheels, a popular soft-baked bar intended for children aged 1 to 3. Reports that the bars can “quickly form into a dense, dry, and sticky mass during consumption” led to the recall, according to the company’s statement posted on the US Food and Drug Administration’s website. Separately, other reports from parents have indicated that pieces of metal may have ended up in some Once Upon a Farm products. Co-founded by actress Jennifer Garner, the organic food company for kids IPO’d in February and made a splash. But news of the recall sent the stock down 38% last week, obliterating $242 million of market value.—HVL

de-glazing

A scene from inside Disfrutar, a previous The 50 winner. Europa Press News/Getty Images

Of all the ways for a chef to taste success, being named the world’s best restaurant has to be one of the sweetest. This year, Asador Etxebarri in Atxondo, Spain, gets to Basque in the glory of that honor, according to The 50, a group that highlights top-notch hospitality establishments. But—like the food at grill-happy Asador Etxebarri—the whole process is getting flamed.

Meal ticket: Being included on The 50’s list boosts visibility and revenue, but that’s also part of the problem, since an owner’s focus can get caught up in making the list rather than improving their restaurant. Or, as Ivan Brehm, the chef-owner of Michelin-starred Nouri in Singapore, told CNBC, “Guides and lists now shape the industry they claim to assess.”

Making the list takes effort, too: Ana Roš, whose Hiša Franko restaurant in Slovenia was ranked 60th, opted to skip this year’s best-of event in Lima, Peru, saying the award ecosystem demands significant time, money, and work commitments, like press events and international travel.

It’s not just restaurants: According to finance platform Tide, the average UK worker spends about 2.8 hours per week on self-promotion, which can include vocalizing wins in meetings and writing performative LinkedIn posts that do things like describe brewing a pot of coffee as “optimizing liquidity ratios.”—BC

      

Reader Poll

Sponsored By FloQast

Houston, we have an audit trail. FloQast is engineered around real accounting logic, controls, and workflows, built by accountants who have actually done the work. With a complete audit trail on every output, accountants can verify the work and stand behind it. To see how it all works, request a demo here.

calendar

The week ahead

Kevin Carter/Getty Images

New inflation data: The consumer price index (CPI) report for October will be released tomorrow—the final CPI drop before the Federal Reserve’s December meeting, where a rate hike is expected. Then, the producer price index report, which measures wholesale inflation, will be released on Friday. In September, wholesale prices were up 6.3% year-over-year, the highest rate since 2022.

Let’s ’dance: Welcome to earnings season, Skydance. For the first time since Paramount Skydance officially acquired Warner Bros. Discovery, the newly combined company will report earnings today. Since the deal closed last month, David Ellison’s new Hollywood giant has offered employees buyouts and shaken up Skydance’s executive ranks. Elsewhere in earnings land, CoreWeave—down more than 41% year to date—will deliver results tomorrow, followed by Cisco, Applied Materials, and Bending Spoons on Thursday.

Getting lame ducks in a row: With the midterms in the rearview mirror, Congress returns to Capitol Hill today to start its lame-duck session. Outgoing members may feel senioritis creeping in like the last month of high school, but many important issues remain to be tackled. A government funding deadline looms on December 11, and if lawmakers can’t find common ground, the government will shut down. Plus, addressing military spending and farm programs is also on the to-do list. And a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could happen as soon as this week.

But wait, there’s more:

• Veterans Day is on Wednesday. May all of their sacrifices be appreciated. May all of their meals be discounted.
• Johnny Depp stars in Ebenezer, the actor’s first major studio role in eight years, on Friday.

BRENDAN’S GOT GOOD NEWS

El Niño’s Southwestern silver lining

Getty Images

Mondays are bad enough, so the Brew’s own Brendan Cosgrove scoured the internet for a positive news story to help you start the week off right.

El Niño has dumped heavy rains on much of the Southwestern US in recent weeks, leading to flooding and some evacuations, but the climate event may be easing the region’s yearslong megadrought.

Reservoir dogged: As anyone who’s visited a European restaurant can attest, plain old water can be hard to come by. But recent rains are turning the tide in the drought-ravaged American West. Per the Associated Press:

• Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, is up more than 20 feet from its September low.
• Upper Lake Mary, which supplies water for Flagstaff, AZ, has gained more than 3 billion gallons since early October.

El Niño (Spanish for The Niño, per Chris Farley) is also expected to bring more snow to the Western US, after the region endured an abysmal ski season last year.—BC

Sponsored By SoFi

Chat with coach. SoFi Coach is a smart, personal guide that helps get your money right. It can replace fragmented tools and generic advice with clear, 24/7 actionable insights that help you make more confident financial decisions by combining the credible expertise of financial planners with frontier AI models. See how it works.

News

What else is brewing

• Krakw, Poland, experienced a rare mass shooting on Saturday, when a 24-year-old gunman with far-right views shot and killed six people and wounded 15. Poland’s defense minister called it “an act of terror.”
• NASA is accepting applications for new astronauts for its Artemis program through Dec. 3. The cohort is expected to begin training in 2028.
• The main day of Diwali, the festival of lights in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, took place yesterday. It concludes tomorrow.
• The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree for 2026, a 76-foot-tall Norway spruce, arrived in Manhattan from West Edmeston, NY, on Saturday.
• James Talarico, the senator-elect from Texas, made a surprise appearance in Saturday Night Live’s cold open, saying, “I’m the guy who’s been texting you every day asking for $5.”

recs

• There’s a “gray list” of phrases that iOS won’t autocomplete.
• The most and least expensive routes to use airline miles on for Thanksgiving travel.
• The “American Dream” now costs $5.3 million, according to a new analysis.
• Improve your selfie quality with this phone monitor.**

^{*A message from our sponsor. **This is a product recommendation from our writers. When you buy through this link, Morning Brew may earn a commission.}

Play

Turntable: Your center letter of the week is D, surrounded by R, A, L, U, Y, and N. Can you make 31 words from those? Give it a whirl. Play Turntable here.

Syllabus trivia

An extremely popular humanities class at Harvard has become almost as difficult to get into as the university itself.

Below are some of the classic books on the reading list (not exactly beach reads). Can you name the authors?

1. Emma
2. The Wealth of Nations
3. Frankenstein
4. The Fire Next Time and Notes of a Native Son
5. On the Genealogy of Morality

Answer

1. Jane Austen
2. Adam Smith
3. Mary Shelley
4. James Baldwin
5. Friedrich Nietzsche

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: “lascivious,” meaning “definitely not PG.” Thanks to Robert from Providence, RI, and the many other readers who felt compelled to make the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.