31-year-old short seller at Culper Research shorted NVIDIA six months ago over its China problem — nobody listened

Short Seller Flagged NVIDIA's China Risk Six Months Ago — Nobody Listened

Christian LaMarco, a 31-year-old at Culper Research, published a 40-page short report on NVIDIA six months ago that outlined a single thesis: the company has a significant China problem. The report raised questions about NVIDIA's business in China and what it described as an uncomfortably close relationship between CEO Jensen Huang and Alice Huang, an executive at one of the company's major business partners in Southeast Asia.

When the report dropped, nobody paid attention. The day it was published, Jensen Huang touched down in Beijing aboard Air Force One on a state trip with President Trump — a visit that had generated internal debate about whether Huang should even be included on the guest list. The next day, NVIDIA stock hit a record high. Sometimes people don't care what you have to say, LaMarco said later. In this case, they eventually did.

Six months after the initial report, questions about Huang's relationship with Alice Huang became tabloid fuel. In early October, the New York Times published reporting naming Huang and others in connection with the situation. But it wasn't until this week — potentially timed to political shifts after the midterms — that the story exploded. Culper's analysis went from ignored to viral. LaMarco's NVIDIA posts racked up millions of views on X, and his phone blew up with media requests.

The financial outcome remains murky. NVIDIA has lost more than $1 trillion in market value since the report, and the stock is down 20% over six months. But LaMarco declined to say how much money he's made from what may be the most prescient short call of his career, or whether he's still holding the position. Timing is everything for short sellers. The stock rallied to all-time highs in early October before the recent collapse — meaning the trade's profitability depends entirely on when he exited.

LaMarco grew up in Upstate New York and studied finance at Grove City College, a small Christian school in Pennsylvania. He competed in a stock-picking contest at Carnegie Mellon against Ivy Leaguers, finishing second with a $100 prize for a long position in Nexstar Media Group. Unable to rely on campus recruiting, he emailed his own research to hedge funds, landed a job at a long-short firm in Chicago from 2017 to 2019, then moved to Pittsburgh with a few months of savings to start his own shop.

He named Culper Research after the Culper Ring, the spy network that tracked British troop movements in occupied New York during the Revolutionary War — a reference to the AMC show Turn that he first watched in a friend's basement. The parallel appealed to him: just as the Culper Ring took an exhaustive investigative approach to intelligence gathering, his firm would apply the same rigor to investment research.

Since founding the firm, Culper has targeted dozens of public companies, mostly small caps. LaMarco and his two analysts have tangled with powerful interests. A window and glass manufacturer hired Elon Musk's attorney and sued him for defamation after he alleged the company had links to the Sinaloa drug cartel. He also tried to make a $1 million wager with Jimmy Fallon over Archer Aviation, a controversial electric air taxi company with a track record of hype but no meaningful customer deployments — Fallon never responded.

Even Tay Kim, one of NVIDIA's strongest defenders, said this week that you can't have an affair with a direct report. It's over.