Is an Nvidia Without Jensen Huang Possible?

• “Investors are confronting a scenario once deemed unimaginable: an Nvidia without its founder, Jensen Huang,” The Wall Street Journal analyzed.
• Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO) acknowledged his romantic relationship with Ellis Huang (Megaspeed executive), who faces allegations of being a Chinese spy. “I was unfaithful to my wife,” he said, adding, “There is no excuse.”
• Megaspeed is suspected of acting as a backdoor for diverting AI chips to China.
• When asked if Jensen Huang should remain CEO, Trump said, “I think so.” Calling him “a man of honor,” he added, “There are probably extenuating circumstances.”
• Bill Ackman (Pershing Square CEO) stated, “If this is more than just an affair, it’s clearly a serious issue.”
• Geng Shuang (Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson) called it “baseless speculation and slander.”
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Jensen Huang Risk.

• Concerns arise that the company’s value and the founder’s personal stature are too closely intertwined—a classic key man risk.
• Nvidia operates with 60 executives directly reporting to Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO). There have long been worries about the absence of a clear number two.
• While immediate sales disruption is unlikely, it remains a serious destabilizing factor. The possibility of his dismissal is also being discussed.
• Some analysts speculate it could become a new flashpoint in the U.S.-China semiconductor war.
• Dan Ives (Wedbush Securities CEO) predicted, “This will create ongoing pressure on the stock price.”
• Charles Elson (University of Delaware professor) emphasized, “No one lives forever,” adding, “You can’t run such a large company dependent on one person.” “What if he gets hit by a bus?”
• Axios reported that Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO) has previously been mentioned as a potential successor to Jensen Huang.
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What Matters Now.

U.S. Stocks Rebound Strongly.

• The S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq rose 2.34%, 2.15%, and 2.74% respectively yesterday.
• Nvidia alone fell 4.3%. AMD surged 11.8%, Broadcom 7.7%, Micron 6.4%, and Meta 5.1%—major tech stocks all rallied sharply.
• The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumped 6.86%.
• South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.8% to 5,018.85 yesterday.
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“Focusing on uncovering the truth is the right approach.”.

• Lee Yong-cheol (nominee for Minister of Justice) made this statement. Questions poured in about how far the Ministry of Justice would intervene after the Special Prosecutor Act for Manipulated Indictments passed last week.
• Lee Yong-cheol limited himself to emphasizing the principle: “It is preferable to act according to law and principle.”
• The tone differs from his predecessors. Jeong Seong-ho (former Minister of Justice) said, “I have not reviewed it and have no intention of directing,” while Kim Seung-won (Democratic Party lawmaker, withdrawn nomination) drew a line: “I have no intention of directing the investigation.”
• Kim Eui-gyeom (Democratic Party lawmaker) stated, “If the prosecution’s investigation is clearly proven wrong, I believe a dismissal of charges is possible.”
• Kim Nam-jun (Democratic Party lawmaker) argued, “Can we just stand by if there was manipulation?” and insisted, “We must thoroughly uncover the truth and take appropriate action.”
• Park Sung-hoon (People Power Party senior spokesperson) criticized, “This is an admission of intent to act as an ‘agent for dismissing charges.’”
• In an editorial, JoongAng Ilbo pointed out, “Suspicion cannot help but arise: Is this simply following a predetermined sequence toward the endpoint of dismissing charges?”
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Lee Yong-cheol’s Confirmation Hearing: Daejang-dong and Yoo Dong-gyu.

• Lee Yong-cheol said, “I do not believe personal ties with the president should disqualify a minister.”
• Lee Yong-cheol served as head of the Seongnam Industrial Promotion Foundation during Lee Jae-myung’s (President) tenure as mayor of Seongnam.
• He faces allegations of involvement in appointing Yoo Dong-gyu (then head of planning at Seongnam Urban Development Corporation) in 2010 as a member of the Seongnam City Facilities Management Corporation’s executive recommendation committee. Yoo Dong-gyu claimed, “I ranked first with Lee Yong-cheol’s strong support.”
• Yoo Dong-gyu has made specific allegations, including that they played poker at a chicken soup restaurant. Lee Yong-cheol dismissed this as “malicious slander.”
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Who Will Go to the Special Prosecutor’s Office?

• Jang Jin-young (Chief Prosecutor at Suncheon Branch of Gwangju District Public Prosecutors’ Office) warned on the prosecutors’ intranet, “It will inevitably lead to an absurd outcome unimaginable in a rule-of-law state, where prosecutors are constantly investigating each other.”
• Gong Bong-suk (Prosecutor at Seoul Metropolitan Public Prosecutors’ Office) said, “I hope to avoid this special prosecutor investigation at all costs.”
• A prosecutor met by JoongAng Ilbo stated, “If I’m mobilized for the investigation, I’d rather submit my resignation.” Another prosecutor said, “I obviously have no intention of volunteering, and if the situation forces me to go, I’ll take childcare leave. The general sentiment is, ‘If leave isn’t possible, I’ll resign.’”
• The Prosecutor General Candidate Recommendation Committee has also been postponed. Candidates mentioned include Lee Jung-hyun (Deputy Chief Prosecutor), Park Chul-woo (Chief of Seoul Central District Public Prosecutors’ Office), and Yeo Se-min (Attorney-at-law). Lee Jung-hyun once apologized, calling the Ssangbangwool North Korea remittance case “a very flawed investigative approach.”
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Deep Dive.

Democrats Shaking the Comprehensive Real Estate Tax.

• Democratic Party lawmakers are demanding the non-resident basic deduction be raised to 1.4 billion won.
• The August tax reform plan differentiated basic deductions between residents (1.4 billion won) and non-residents (900 million won). But as approval ratings plummeted, the non-resident deduction was raised to 1.2 billion won—now they seek another increase to 1.4 billion won.
• Approximately 47,000 non-resident single-homeowners would see reduced tax burdens under this change compared to the government’s original proposal.
• Park Sung-jun (Democratic Party lawmaker) stated, “This is a matter directly tied to the 2028 general election.”
• A Blue House official interviewed by The Hankyoreh said, “Raising it once to 1.2 billion won was already a concession—doing it again would be difficult.”
• A 60-year-old non-resident single-homeowner who has held a 3-billion-won (2-billion-won assessed value) apartment for 10 years currently pays 2.22 million won in tax. With a 1.4-billion-won deduction, this would drop to 1.52 million won—a 700,000-won (31%) reduction.
• Kim Hyun-dong (Pai Chai University professor) criticized, “Tax policy is spiraling out of control.”
• Lee Kang-hoon (Participatory Democracy Law Center lawyer) noted, “Properties with a 1.4-billion-won assessed value are already unaffordable for young people and newlyweds.”
• The Kyunghyang Shinmun warned in an editorial, “If the tax is eased again, it will send the wrong signal to the real estate market: ‘Just hold on and you’ll be fine.’” It called the move “a regressive reversal undermining tax principles.”
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Demands to Sell Cheap Have Raised Food Prices.

• Baedal Minjok and Coupang Eats imposed a condition: they must not sell more expensively than competitors. It is called a “most-favored-nation” clause.
• While Baedal Minjok’s commission fees are often higher than Coupang Eats’, many affiliated stores chose to raise prices or minimum order amounts on Baedal Minjok rather than lower them on Coupang Eats.
• According to the Fair Trade Commission, for a 25,000 won order, self-delivery fees rose by 350 won, and restaurant-delivery fees by 1,650 won.
• The Fair Trade Commission imposed corrective orders and fines of 331.1 billion won on Baedal Minjok and 300.8 billion won on Coupang Eats.

Another Take.

Parliamentary Audit Business as Usual.

• “It’s an open secret that lawmakers use witness selection for parliamentary audits as leverage to resolve local constituency grievances.”
• When companies pledge donations to funds, witnesses are often withdrawn or replaced with executives instead of conglomerate heads.
• Yoon Joon-byeong (Democratic Party lawmaker) said, “Every year during parliamentary audits, lawmakers have resorted to extortion-like tactics—threatening, blackmailing, and coercing—to secure funds, and it’s time to move beyond this.”
• A corporate government-affairs official met by Chosun Ilbo stated, “When lawmakers’ offices request favors like golf course reservations, we have no choice but to comply, at least outwardly, given the threat of being called as audit witnesses.”
• A financial sector government-affairs executive said, “Even today, it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to summon CEOs as witnesses without cause and then casually demand donations of goods to local constituency institutions.”
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Iran Warns Against Troops Deployed by Trickery.

• Esmail Bagaei (Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson) stated, “The best help Korea can provide is to refrain from meddling in complex issues,” adding, “We hope Korea does not appear as an accomplice to military aggression.”
• The government submitted a revised bill to the National Assembly to expand the Cheonghae Unit’s mission from the Gulf of Aden to the southern Oman Sea and add military assets.
• Note: The original Korean content contained a line break after the first paragraph, which has been preserved in the translation. The second paragraph in the Korean text was a single continuous sentence without internal line breaks, so it is rendered as such in English. If the original Korean had included a line break within the second paragraph, it would have been preserved accordingly.
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The Core of AI Competition Lies in Vertical Integration.

• Tom Braithwaite (Financial Times columnist) noted, “They are clashing head-on in the most capital-intensive competition in history.”
• Google possesses its own semiconductors, data centers, AI models, Android smartphones, and Waymo.
• SpaceX integrates AI into satellites and rockets, and with Tesla’s merger, aims to add automobiles and robots.
• The Financial Times pointed out that the most vulnerable are companies with relatively weaker vertical integration. Model developers like Anthropic and OpenAI, and AI cloud firms like CoreWeave and Nvidia, must accept terms set by stronger suppliers.
• While scaling up makes securing funding and power easier, it also increases investment burdens and regulatory risks. There is an analysis that, much like how Netscape lost its lead in internet browsers to Microsoft, there is a risk of being overtaken by integrated competitors.

Buying a Company Means Buying Minority Shares Too.

• The government is reviewing a mandatory tender offer system.
• Lee Jae-myung (president) suggested on X, “It’s time to seek wisdom from all sectors on how high to set the mandatory purchase ratio and how to harmonize the interests of major and minority shareholders in practice.”
• According to the revised Capital Markets Act, an acquirer must first purchase the controlling shareholder’s stake, then conduct a public tender offer only for the remaining shares needed to reach 50%+1. If the controlling shareholder sells 40 out of 100 shares to a new shareholder, the acquirer needs to buy only 11 of the 60 shares held by general shareholders.
• Controlling shareholders sell at a premium and exit, while minority shareholders are left marginalized.
• Kim Woo-chan (Korea University professor) argues for a full mandatory tender offer. After all, it’s just a proposal—if shareholders don’t sell, there’s no need to buy.
• Kim emphasized, “If full acquisitions become standard, listed subsidiaries will decrease, reducing overlapping listings, narrowing the gap between ownership and control, curbing incentives for private profit extraction, and suppressing dominance expansion through pyramidal investments.”
• The Asia Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) also sent a letter to the Korean government recommending amendments to the bill. It asked why Korea adopted a different approach when the UK, Hong Kong, and Singapore mandate 100% purchase offers.
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The Fix.

COP31’s Key Theme: Overshoot.

• Earth’s average temperature rise has temporarily exceeded 1.5°C, entering an ‘overshoot’ scenario.
• The 31st UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) is underway in Türkiye.
• From January to September this year, global average temperatures were 1.47°C higher than pre-industrial levels. While lower than 2024’s record 1.55°C, projections suggest the past four years will rank as the hottest on record.
• Chris Bowen (Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy) stated, “The latest science tells us we will overshoot 1.5°C,” adding, “But if we act together with urgency, solidarity, and resolve, we can still turn back.”
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ICYMI.

Hwang Woo-suk Is Now a Citizen of the UAE.

• He acquired UAE citizenship in April, losing his South Korean nationality.
• Hwang Woo-suk (former Seoul National University professor) works as CEO of UAE BioTech, a life sciences research institute in Abu Dhabi.
• His connection to the UAE government began when he cloned a pet dog for a royal princess, leading to state-backed research on camel cloning and other projects.

Gyeonggi Province in ‘Bankruptcy,’ Selling Its Own Office Building.

• Gyeonggi has included its Gwanggyo government complex in the list of assets under consideration for sale. The building cost 478 billion won to construct, with current appraisals ranging from 720 to 870 billion won.
• Bang Seong-hwan (Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly member) argued, “The term ‘fiscal crisis’ itself is premature. It makes no sense to consider selling a government complex that has only been occupied for a few years without clear evidence of financial distress.”
• Finding an immediate alternative office is not easy, and relocation costs—along with rental expenses—would also be substantial.

China Shock 2.0.

• 35% of Chinese electric vehicle exports go to Europe. Hybrid vehicles are projected to sell 800,000 units this year.
• Chinese new energy vehicle sales reached 7.45 million units in the first half of 2024. While domestic sales fell 13%, exports surged 120%.
• Whereas ‘China Shock 1.0’ centered on low-cost processed goods, ‘2.0’ encroaches on sectors where South Korea dominates—such as automobiles and batteries.
• Han Woo-deok (JoongAng Ilbo senior reporter) diagnosed, “As we fall behind in both technology and price, we’re being pushed into the same situation as Europe,” adding, “Before we knew it, South Korea and Europe have become fellow sufferers.”
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Worth Reading.

When Politics Fails, Discrimination Becomes Entertainment.

• “When the state abandons its duties, citizens turn on each other. The president’s focus should not be on adjusting benefit rankings. Use social media to expand public postpartum care centers and national kindergartens.”
• Kim Min-a (Kyunghyang Shinmun columnist) advised, “It’s not too late yet,” adding, “If it was a misstatement, an apology suffices.”
• This comments on President Lee Jae-myung’s claim that multicultural families are receiving undue benefits. According to Kyunghyang Shinmun analysis, mentions of reverse discrimination and special treatment in multicultural-related posts surged over sevenfold after the controversy.
• “Intent does not absolve responsibility.”
• Kim Min-a warned, “The most serious issue is that ‘reverse discrimination theory,’ once confined to fringe online spaces, has entered the ‘normal discourse’ and ‘legitimate agenda’ framework. Pandora’s box has been opened, and once open, it won’t close easily.”
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Human Writing Is the Vaccine Against AI.

• Participants given AI-generated ideas for short stories produced fresher, funnier work—but their submissions grew eerily similar.
• Individuals gain novelty while groups lose diversity: a ‘social dilemma.’
• Courts have launched a service providing judges with precedents. Park Kyung-ho (Professor, Korea Energy Technology University) warned, “The real danger isn’t fake rulings but rulings that resemble one another.” He added, “While individual verdicts may improve, the system as a whole risks fewer groundbreaking precedents.”
• “The ‘consistency’ law values—treating like cases alike—and AI’s ‘convergence to the mean’ are not the same. The former applies equal treatment to similar cases; the latter forces dissimilar cases into sameness.”
• When AI trains on AI-generated text, common phrases proliferate while rare but critical information—‘the tail of the distribution’—vanishes. The void fills with nonsense, and minority voices disappear.
• This is why original human data matters. The argument: blending human writing prevents model collapse.
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