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

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has resigned with immediate effect, the chipmaker’s board said on Thursday, naming chief financial officer Colette Kress interim CEO and Harvey C. Jones its first-ever board chair.

Huang, who co-founded the company and led it for 33 years, also left the board. Kress will continue as executive vice president and CFO while serving as interim chief executive until a permanent successor is named, Nvidia said in a statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Nvidia shares slide after the leadership change

Nvidia stock fell as much as 14% at the start of trading on Thursday before paring much of that loss, according to the Associated Press. The shares closed at $166.19, down $7.54 or 4.34%. The stock had already been under pressure after the recent AI stocks selloff that pushed the Nasdaq into a correction.

The move weighed on the wider market. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.39% to 25,366.09, the S&P 500 lost 0.35% to 7,592.40 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 189.40 points to 52,297.09. Rising Treasury yields also weighed on stocks, Yahoo Finance reported, while oil prices climbed after President Donald Trump said he was no longer interested in a deal with Iran, according to the AP.

Other AI chip names held up better. AMD rose 5.9% and Broadcom gained 5.5% on hopes they could win business from Nvidia’s turmoil, the AP reported, suggesting investors were reassessing leadership risk at Nvidia rather than exiting the AI trade altogether.

How the board reached its decision

The exit caps a turbulent week. On Sunday, Nvidia’s board said it had opened an investigation into Huang following reports of a relationship with a woman suspected of being a Chinese government agent, the AP reported. At the time, the board said it retained confidence in Huang and had no reason to believe US national security or company secrets had been compromised.

The board then met on Wednesday night after The New York Times reported an alleged second affair involving a company executive, Yahoo Finance reported. According to the company’s Form 8-K filing, the board accepted Huang’s resignation on 11 November, a day before the public announcement.

The company’s statement did not include any comment from Huang. The board said Huang’s contributions to Nvidia were “profound”.

Nvidia interim CEO Colette Kress and new chair

Kress, 59, joined Nvidia as CFO in September 2013 after senior finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft, according to the company. She has led Nvidia’s finance organisation through the AI boom and is a familiar voice to Wall Street analysts from the company’s earnings calls.

“Colette has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth,” said Jones, 73, who has served on the board since 1993 and is a former chief executive and executive chairman of chip-design software firm Synopsys. He said the board has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team and expects the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.

In her own statement, Kress said she was committed to building on the foundation Huang created and that the company’s focus remains on serving customers, partners, developers and shareholders. Jones’ appointment gives Nvidia a board chair for the first time, and Bloomberg had reported earlier this year that the company lacked a clear successor to Huang.

Why Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s exit matters for investors

Nvidia is one of the most important suppliers of chips powering the AI build-out, and Huang was among the most prominent executives of the AI era. The sudden change at the top raises questions about leadership continuity at a company whose products sit at the centre of data-centre spending plans across Big Tech, cloud providers and governments.

Nvidia has said its search for a permanent CEO will consider both internal and external candidates, but it has not named any shortlist or timeline. For corporate boards more broadly, the episode is likely to sharpen scrutiny of founder-led governance and succession planning, an issue we examined when the board first opened its independent probe into Jensen Huang.

What happens next

The first test for the leadership team that follows Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang comes quickly. Nvidia will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, 17 November, as previously scheduled, with the earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific Time, the company said.

Investors will watch for guidance on demand, any update on the CEO search and how Kress handles questions about governance. The full announcement is available in Nvidia’s SEC filing.