Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO After 33 Years as Board Names Interim Chief
Jensen Huang, the co-founder who built Nvidia from a graphics-chip startup into the most important company of the artificial intelligence boom, has resigned as the chipmaker’s chief executive after 33 years, ending one of the longest and most consequential runs in Silicon Valley history.
Nvidia announced on Thursday, November 12, that Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and a member of the board, effective immediately. The company’s board accepted his resignation the previous evening, according to a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and named chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive while it searches for a permanent successor.
The announcement gave no reason for Huang’s departure and said nothing about the independent board investigation that has shadowed the company for the past week. It was the abrupt end of a tenure that turned Nvidia into the dominant supplier of the chips powering the global AI race — and it immediately raised questions about who will steer the company, and how Washington will treat its most sensitive export decisions, in the months ahead.
A boardroom decision made in one night
According to the filing, Nvidia’s board accepted the resignation of Jen-Hsun Huang on Wednesday, November 11, the same night directors met to decide his future. Reuters reported that day that the board was meeting to weigh whether to remove him, and The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to fire him. On Thursday morning the company announced a resignation, not a removal.
Kress, 59, has been Nvidia’s executive vice president and chief financial officer since September 2013. She will keep the finance job while serving as interim chief executive, the company said, and the board will consider both internal and external candidates for the permanent role. The board also appointed Harvey C. Jones, 73, a director since 1993 and a former chief executive of chip-design software company Synopsys, as its first-ever board chair.
The filing, which runs to three paragraphs, discloses no severance, separation or equity arrangements for Huang. The press release attached to it adds only that the search will consider internal and external candidates and expresses confidence in the company’s direction. Nvidia said its product roadmap, operations and customer commitments would continue without interruption.
Huang, 63, is Nvidia’s fourth-largest shareholder, with a 3.61 percent stake in the company, according to Reuters. He co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and led it from a maker of graphics processors for video games to a company whose chips now sit at the center of data centers, cloud computing and the AI systems built by the world’s largest technology firms.
The week that led to the resignation
Huang’s exit caps a tumultuous week that began with reports about his personal conduct and widened into questions about national security and U.S. chip export policy.
In October 2025, The New York Times reported that Huang had a relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud company and Nvidia partner. U.S. intelligence officials have reportedly concluded that Alice Huang acted as a Chinese intelligence asset, according to Reuters and the Times. China has denied the claim, and the U.S. Justice Department has not reached a conclusion on whether she was acting as a spy. The reporting has not been independently verified by some outlets covering the story.
On Sunday, November 8, Huang acknowledged in a message to employees that he had been unfaithful to his wife, apologized and said he would cooperate with an independent investigation. The same day, Nvidia’s board said it was opening an independent inquiry, and on November 10 its independent directors retained former acting U.S. attorney Joon H. Kim and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct it.
On November 11, the Times reported a second relationship, with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to Huang. Reuters reported that Huang had also had an intimate relationship with a second Nvidia employee. That evening, the board met. President Donald Trump had urged Huang to fight for his job in a call on Tuesday, the Times reported, according to Reuters. Reuters also reported that Huang has hired the law firm Paul Weiss, without saying what matters the firm would handle on his behalf.
Neither the company’s announcement nor the SEC filing says whether the independent investigation has concluded, what it found, or whether it will continue now that Huang has left. The resignation is a confirmed governance outcome. It does not establish a security breach, an export-control violation, or a completed finding about workplace conduct.
Shares plunge, then steady
Investors reacted sharply. Nvidia shares fell more than 10 percent in premarket trading on Thursday after the announcement, opened about 13 percent lower, and then recovered much of the loss to close at $166.19, down 4.34 percent. The stock gained about 1 percent in after-hours trading.
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The drop weighed on the broader market. The Nasdaq fell for a second straight session on Thursday, and the slide deepened on Friday as technology stocks led a broad sell-off and the 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 5 percent. Nvidia fell again in early trading on Friday, extending Thursday’s decline.
The timing adds pressure on the company’s new leadership. Nvidia is scheduled to report results for the third quarter of its 2027 fiscal year on Tuesday, November 17, at about 1:20 p.m. Pacific time, with an earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific. It will be Kress’s first earnings call as interim chief executive, and investors will be listening for any change in guidance, any update on the search for a permanent chief, and any word on the investigation.
Why this matters
Huang was not just Nvidia’s chief executive. He was the public face of the AI boom and one of its most important architects, pouring the company’s swelling cash pile back into cloud providers, suppliers and AI laboratories, and building an ecosystem of customers and partners that depended on his personal relationships.
His departure also lands in the middle of a live policy fight in Washington. Huang had pushed to preserve Nvidia’s access to the Chinese market and maintained close ties with President Trump, who has repeatedly intervened in chip policy. Congress has summoned Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over Nvidia chip exports to China, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that he was frustrated by delays at the Commerce Department in imposing restrictions involving Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the center of the controversy.
Whoever succeeds Huang will inherit not only the world’s most valuable chip franchise but also a set of unresolved questions: whether the board’s investigation continues, whether U.S. export controls on advanced chips tighten further, and whether the company’s closest customers — the cloud giants that buy its processors by the tens of thousands — keep their spending plans intact.
For now, the company has given investors almost nothing beyond the bare facts of the transition. The next scheduled moment of clarity is Tuesday’s earnings call, when Kress will face analysts for the first time as interim chief.
What happens next
- Nvidia reports third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, followed by an earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific time.
- The board’s search for a permanent chief executive begins, with no disclosed timeline. It will consider internal and external candidates.
- The House committee that summoned Huang over chip exports faces a decision on whether its planned November 18 briefing goes ahead, and in what form, now that he is no longer chief executive.
- The independent board investigation’s status remains unclear. Nvidia has not said whether it continues or what it has found.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Jensen Huang resign as Nvidia CEO?
Nvidia has given no reason. The company announced on November 12 that Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and a board director, effective immediately, and its SEC filing does not explain the decision. The resignation followed reports about Huang’s personal relationships and an independent board investigation into whether he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, but the company has not linked the two.
Who is running Nvidia now?
Chief financial officer Colette Kress, 59, is interim chief executive while keeping her finance role. She has been Nvidia’s CFO since September 2013. The board will search for a permanent successor and will consider internal and external candidates. Harvey C. Jones, a director since 1993, has become the company’s first-ever board chair.
What happened to Nvidia’s stock after the resignation?
Nvidia shares fell more than 10 percent in premarket trading on Thursday, November 12, opened about 13 percent lower, and closed at $166.19, down 4.34 percent. The stock recovered about 1 percent in after-hours trading. The shares fell again on Friday as part of a broader technology sell-off.
Will Nvidia still report earnings on November 17?
Yes. Nvidia said it will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, at about 1:20 p.m. Pacific time, with an earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific, as previously scheduled. It will be Colette Kress’s first earnings call as interim chief executive.
Jensen Huang’s resignation closes a 33-year chapter at the company he co-founded, and it leaves the most important firm in the AI era in the hands of an interim chief at the very moment its leadership, its strategy in China and its relationship with Washington are all under scrutiny. What Kress says on Tuesday — and whom the board chooses to lead Nvidia next — will shape the answer to the question investors are now asking: whether the company Huang built can keep its momentum without him.
Sources: Reuters; Reuters via SRN News; Nvidia Corporation Form 8-K filed with the SEC, Nov 12, 2026; The San Francisco Inquirer; CoinDesk (market context).
