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Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO; CFO Colette Kress Named Interim Chief

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Nvidia headquarters sign with a darkened trading chart behind it, illustrating Jensen Huang's resignation as CEO

Jensen Huang has resigned as president and chief executive of Nvidia, effective immediately, ending a 33-year run at the head of the company he co-founded and built into the world’s most valuable chipmaker and the central supplier of the artificial intelligence boom.

Nvidia announced the departure on Thursday, November 12. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent successor, and longtime board member Harvey C. Jones has been appointed as the company’s first-ever board chair. The company’s statement gave no reason for Huang’s resignation.

The announcement came a day after Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future, following a week in which reports about his personal relationships and an alleged foreign intelligence connection turned into a full-blown corporate and national security crisis.

Shares slide more than 10% as AI stocks sink

Investors reacted swiftly. Nvidia shares fell 10.3% in premarket trading on Thursday, putting the company’s market value on course to drop below $4 trillion for the first time since July 2025, according to Reuters. The company has lost about $300 billion in market value since the board announced an investigation into Huang on Sunday.

The slide extended losses from Wednesday evening, when the stock fell about 8% in after-hours trading to around $160 after The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to remove Huang. Shares had closed the regular Wednesday session at $173.73, up 2.87% on the day.

The fallout spread across the AI sector. Global AI-linked stocks fell on Thursday, with CoreWeave down more than 5% and Intel, Dell and Super Micro Computer each down around 3% to 4% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. Rival chipmakers moved the other way: shares of AMD and Broadcom rose more than 4% and 3%, respectively, in after-hours trading.

Analysts moved just as fast. Baird cut Nvidia to neutral and slashed its price target to $200 from $500, Bernstein cut its target to $200 from $400 and downgraded the stock to market-perform, and Morgan Stanley removed Nvidia from its top-pick list. Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives valued the company at $300 a share with Huang as chief executive and $225 without him, CNBC reported.

What Nvidia announced

Nvidia’s announcement, issued on Thursday, was brief and gave no explanation for the resignation. It confirmed three changes at once:

  • Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board, effective immediately.
  • Colette Kress, the company’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, agreed to serve as interim chief executive while keeping her finance role.
  • Harvey C. Jones, a former Synopsys chief executive and longtime Nvidia board member, was appointed as the board’s first-ever chair.

The board said it has started a search for a permanent chief executive and will consider internal and external candidates. It has given no timeline. Nvidia said it expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption.

In a regulatory filing, Nvidia said its board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday, according to TechCrunch. The announcement included no quote from Huang himself.

Kress has run Nvidia’s finances since 2013, after nearly 25 years in finance roles at companies including Cisco and Microsoft. She now takes over a company that has never had a chief executive other than its founder. Her first major test comes on Tuesday, November 17, when Nvidia reports its third-quarter fiscal 2027 results as scheduled, followed by an earnings call with analysts.

A week that unraveled a 33-year tenure

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and led it from a graphics-chip startup to the dominant supplier of the chips powering the global AI boom. He is also the company’s fourth-largest investor, holding a stake of about 3.61%, according to Reuters.

The crisis began over the weekend, when the board announced on Sunday, November 8, that it was opening an independent investigation into reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. The review is being run by the law firm Wachtell Lipton with a former federal prosecutor, according to reports.

Huang subsequently acknowledged in an internal message to employees that he had been unfaithful to his wife, apologizing to his family and colleagues and pledging to cooperate with the investigation. The relationship at the center of the reports was with Alice Huang, a businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence reportedly suspected of working for China’s Ministry of State Security and of involvement in efforts to divert restricted Nvidia chips to China. Those allegations have been reported by The New York Times and Reuters; no charges or formal findings have been made public.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported a second alleged relationship, this time with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare technology, an executive who reported directly to Huang. Hours later, The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to remove him, and Reuters reported that directors were meeting late Wednesday to decide his future.

President Donald Trump has confirmed an FBI investigation into Huang, and U.S. lawmakers have called for his resignation. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office has asked the administration to preserve all documents tied to Nvidia’s advanced chip exports to China, CNBC reported.

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The board’s statement released no findings from its investigation, and it remains unclear whether any legal action will follow. Huang’s exit from the board went further than some reports had anticipated: Nvidia’s bylaws would have allowed him to keep his board seat even if he lost the chief executive job.

Why this matters

Huang was more than Nvidia’s chief executive. He was the public face of the AI boom, the executive who bet the company on accelerated computing years before it became the center of the technology industry, and the leader whose product decisions shaped the strategies of the world’s largest technology companies.

His sudden departure leaves the world’s most valuable chipmaker without a permanent leader at a moment of intense pressure: questions about the sustainability of AI spending, export controls on advanced chips to China, and a share price that has fallen sharply from its October record close. Nvidia closed at $239.24 on October 6; Wednesday’s close of $173.73 was about 27% below that level.

The leadership change also lands days before Nvidia’s quarterly results, which investors watch as a bellwether for the entire AI trade. Kress will have to reassure investors, customers and employees that the transition will not disrupt the business, while the board runs a search for a permanent successor with no timeline set.

The episode has also sharpened scrutiny of Nvidia’s China business. Reuters reported on November 11 that Northwestern Polytechnical University, a Chinese institution on the U.S. Entity List, had acquired Nvidia H200 chips through domestic suppliers, adding to pressure over export controls. The investigation into Huang’s relationships has not produced any public finding that company secrets or national security were compromised; Nvidia’s November 8 statement said the board had no reason to believe either had been.

Latest developments

  • Nvidia’s board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday; the announcement was made public on Thursday, November 12.
  • Colette Kress is interim chief executive and retains her role as chief financial officer.
  • Harvey C. Jones is the board’s first-ever chair.
  • The board has begun a search for a permanent chief executive, considering internal and external candidates, with no timeline announced.
  • Nvidia will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, at approximately 1:20 p.m. Pacific time, followed by an earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific.
  • House committee chairs have asked Huang to attend a closed-door briefing on November 18, a date that now falls after his departure.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Jensen Huang resign from Nvidia?

Nvidia’s announcement gave no reason for the resignation. It came a day after the board met to decide his future, following reports of two extramarital relationships — including one with a businesswoman U.S. intelligence reportedly suspected of links to Chinese intelligence — and an independent board investigation announced on November 8.

Who is running Nvidia now?

Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is serving as interim chief executive while keeping her finance role. She has been Nvidia’s CFO since 2013. The board is searching for a permanent chief executive and will consider internal and external candidates.

What happens to Nvidia’s earnings report?

Nvidia will report its third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, as previously scheduled, followed by an earnings call with analysts. The results will be the first major test of the new leadership.

Has the board’s investigation reached any findings?

No. Nvidia has released no findings from the independent investigation it announced on November 8, and the resignation announcement did not mention the investigation. The company said on November 8 that it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised.

What to watch next

The immediate focus is Friday’s regular trading session and whether Nvidia’s shares stabilize after the premarket slide. The bigger questions are who the board picks as permanent chief executive, what the independent investigation ultimately finds, and whether the November 17 earnings report can steady a company that has lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market value in a matter of days.

For now, the company that Jensen Huang built over 33 years has a new interim leader, a first-ever board chair, and an open search at the top — and the AI industry is watching every step.

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