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

Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and ran it for 33 years, has resigned as president and chief executive of the world’s most valuable AI chipmaker. Nvidia announced the change on Thursday, 12 November 2026, naming chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim CEO while its board searches for a permanent replacement. The exit follows a week of scrutiny over Huang’s personal relationships and possible national security concerns.

What happened?

According to TechCrunch, Nvidia’s board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday, 11 November, as disclosed in a regulatory filing, and the company made it public the next day. Huang has also left the board. Nvidia did not say why he was leaving.

In its statement, the board thanked Huang for his “immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry.” Kress will keep her CFO duties alongside the interim CEO role. The board said it will consider both internal and external candidates for the permanent job, Fortune and Al Jazeera reported.

Nvidia also named its first-ever board chair. Harvey C. Jones, a managing partner at Square Wave Ventures and a former chief executive of Synopsys, has been a director since 1993, before the company went public. TechCrunch reported he is expected to lead the CEO search.

Why did Jensen Huang step down?

The company gave no reason, but the timing is hard to separate from recent events. On Sunday, 8 November, Nvidia’s board opened an independent inquiry after reports that Huang had been targeted by a Chinese intelligence effort, and Huang admitted in a staff memo to an extramarital affair. We covered that announcement in our report on the Nvidia board’s inquiry into Jensen Huang.

The board said at the time that it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised. Then, on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Huang had also had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to him, according to Al Jazeera and Fortune. Al Jazeera said Reuters reported the same day that the board was meeting to consider removing him.

Who is Colette Kress?

Kress has been Nvidia’s CFO since September 2013. Over that period, annual revenue grew from about $4.1 billion in fiscal 2014 to roughly $216 billion in fiscal 2026, Al Jazeera reported. Before Nvidia she held senior finance roles at Texas Instruments, Microsoft and Cisco.

In a statement, Kress said “NVIDIA’s strength has always come from its people,” and that she intends to build on the foundation Huang created, Fortune reported. Jones said Kress had helped lead the company through a period of extraordinary growth.

Key details

• Ownership: Huang remains Nvidia’s largest individual shareholder with a stake of roughly 3.5%, but he had no special voting rights, so the board could remove him at any time, TechCrunch noted.
• No succession plan: Before this week Nvidia had no board chair, no chief operating officer and no named successor, according to Fortune. Huang ran a flat structure with about 60 direct reports.
• Market reaction: Nvidia shares dropped by as much as 14% at one point on Thursday before recovering some ground, Al Jazeera reported. TechCrunch said AI cloud companies backed by Nvidia, including CoreWeave and Nebius, also fell.
• Possible successors: Names cited in reports include Kress, Nvidia executive Ian Buck, Arm chief executive Rene Haas and AMD chief executive Lisa Su. President Donald Trump suggested former Apple CEO Tim Cook, though there is no sign Cook is interested.

Why it matters for AI

Nvidia’s chips power most large AI models, and under Huang the company became a major investor across the AI industry. TechCrunch listed stakes or commitments in OpenAI, Anthropic, CoreWeave and Nebius, and a deal to supply Thinking Machines Lab, whose latest model we covered in our story on Inkling 2 Small.

Huang was also Nvidia’s main voice in Washington on chip export rules for China. A leadership change at this moment matters to AI labs, cloud providers and governments that depend on Nvidia’s hardware and its relationships.

What happens next?

• Earnings on 17 November: Nvidia reports quarterly results on Tuesday, the first public look at the company under interim leadership.
• CEO search: The board, led by Jones, is reviewing internal and external candidates. No timeline has been given.
• Inquiry and Congress: The independent board inquiry continues, and US lawmakers are examining possible national security implications of Huang’s reported relationships.

PFM Today will update this story as Nvidia names a permanent CEO or releases new information.