Nvidia is going out of its way to rebut online criticism. Is this savvy PR or adding fuel to the fire?

By Britney Nguyen and Emily Bary

Nvidia has been vocal in refuting bearish critiques, and there's debate over the merits of its communications strategy

Nvidia says it's "a generation ahead of the industry."

Nvidia has gone on the offensive - or perhaps the defensive - to reshape the recent narrative around the artificial-intelligence trade and the company's place in it.

With Nvidia shares (NVDA) down since last week's earnings report, the world's largest company by market cap has been vocal in response to budding bearish criticisms. To some, the messaging seems consistent with what investor-relations teams should convey. But others think the company is only stoking worries further by acknowledging them.

It started with a memo to sell-side analysts over the weekend, addressing a variety of concerns, from the impact of Nvidia's buyback program to the financial positions of partners like OpenAI and CoreWeave, to the company's view that it "does not resemble historical accounting frauds" like Enron.

Then, as enthusiasm built further for Alphabet's tensor processing units, which are an alternative to the graphics processing units sold by Nvidia, the company weighed in on that conversation as well. Nvidia took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to both praise Google, but said that its own chips are a step ahead.

The post sparked colorful reactions on X, including memes likening the company to BlackBerry and messages poking fun at the use of em-dashes, a staple of ChatGPT-authored content - though MarketWatch writers and editors like them as well.

Read: Google is crushing it. Why that's worrying investors in Nvidia and other AI stocks.

Are Nvidia's responses savvy public relations or a sign the company is growing worried? Alexander Laskin, a public relations professor at Quinnipiac University, didn't directly offer a view of whether Nvidia's strategy was smart or not, but noted that it's important to understand the role of investor relations.

"Investor relations is a function of managing expectations," he said in emailed commentary. "It makes sense to chime in and provide the facts and clarifications."

Those on the investor relations team are supposed to help analysts better understand the business, "especially if an [investor-relations officer] sees any errors in the conversation," he continued.

And Alphabet isn't exactly an upstart competitor, he noted. Google has "a lot of resources to throw at AI if they decide to," meaning that "Nvidia may have reasons to be worried."

FedEx made a similar move in 2018, when it directly acknowledged the threat from Amazon Air by saying that such fear of disruption was "fantastical."

But to Seaport Research's Jay Goldberg, the sole sell-side analyst to carry a bearish rating on Nvidia's stock, the company seems to be "seriously off their game this week in communications."

"I saw that tweet ... and I was like, 'Are you guys OK?'" Goldberg told MarketWatch on Tuesday, adding that the messaging was akin to leaving "the intern in charge while everyone else was on Thanksgiving break."

Goldberg may be bearish on Nvidia's stock, but he doesn't think Nvidia is committing accounting fraud, nor does he agree with other "stupid concerns being raised online." Nonetheless, "the fact that they seem to have responded to those in the selectively disclosed letter, it's just weird," he said.

The company is "kind of letting it fester now," with the potential for the narrative to drag into next week, he added.

Jim Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, suggested that Nvidia's letter to Wall Street analysts was a precarious move, noting "there's always the legal and regulatory risk when the CEO says, 'Yes, everything is wonderful.'"

Nvidia coming out against concerns about its business could be "dangerous," or it's par for the course in getting its message through to Wall Street, Angel said. But what Nvidia is trying to say and to whom is not so clear to him.

Meanwhile, Nvidia's tweet mentioning competition with Google's TPU "basically raises the competition's visibility and puts the idea into people that maybe Nvidia is not the only game in town," Angel said.

Companies are expected to take risks, even with their communications strategies, Angel said, but the question remains whether or not the payoff will be worth it.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to MarketWatch's request for comment on its communications approach. MarketWatch reviewed the memo sent to sell-side analysts after it was included in a broker's research note.

Read: They bet everything on Palantir and became millionaires. Inside the market's ultimate cult stock.

-Britney Nguyen -Emily Bary

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11-26-25 1400ET