Groq engineer-shareholders sue board over $20 billion Nvidia deal

Groq’s board now faces a lawsuit over the deal that sent most of the company to Nvidia. The plaintiffs are two of the people who helped build Groq. Benjamin Serebrin and Joshua Rubin, both former engineers and shareholders at the AI chip startup, filed suit in Delaware around October 3-4, 2026. They allege the board improperly structured a licensing arrangement with Nvidia valued at approximately $20 billion. The core complaint is about who got paid, and how much. According to the suit, common stockholders were undervalued while insiders received preferential treatment. How the Nvidia deal was built The transaction closed in December 2025. On paper it was a licensing deal, not an acquisition. Of the roughly $20 billion total, about $17 billion came in cash as licensing fees. Another $3 billion took the form of an Nvidia stock pool. That equity was set aside for around 200 Groq engineers who moved over to Nvidia. Roughly 90% of Groq’s employees ended up at Nvidia. Founder and CEO Jonathan Ross joined Nvidia, as did president Sunny Madra. Groq, technically, is still around. It continues to operate as an independent company under a new CEO, Simon Edwards. What the plaintiffs are alleg...