Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO — Colette Kress Takes Over as Interim Chief
Jensen Huang has resigned as president and chief executive of Nvidia, effective immediately, ending a 33-year run at the top of the company he co-founded in 1993. Nvidia announced the resignation on Thursday 12 November 2026, named chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive, and said its operations, customer commitments and product roadmap would continue without interruption. Shares in the roughly $4 trillion company fell more than 10% in premarket trading on the news.
The resignation is the confirmed fact. What sits around it — a board preparing to remove him, a second reported affair, and a probe into whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation — is reported, not announced, and this article keeps the two apart.
What Nvidia actually announced
Nvidia's announcement was short and gave no reason for the departure. Huang resigned as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately on 12 November 2026. Colette Kress, the company's chief financial officer, agreed to serve as interim chief executive while keeping her CFO role. The board said it was searching for a permanent successor and would consider internal and external candidates.
The company also appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever board chair, a new role created as part of the transition. Nvidia said its operations, customer commitments and product roadmap would continue without interruption, and confirmed that its third-quarter fiscal 2027 results remain scheduled for Tuesday 17 November, at around 1:20 pm Pacific Time, with the earnings call at 2 pm Pacific Time.
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| Nvidia headquarters building at dusk with the green Nvidia logo lit up on the glass facade and people walking across the plaza |
The market reaction was immediate
Nvidia shares fell more than 10% in premarket trading after the announcement, with CNBC recording a 10.4% drop as of 8:59 am Eastern Time. The fall extends a slide that was already under way: the stock was already down more than 20% over the past month before the resignation was announced.
The scale of the move reflects how closely Nvidia's valuation has been tied to one person. Huang, 63, co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has led it ever since, turning a graphics-chip company into the central supplier of the artificial intelligence boom. He owns about 3.61% of the company, making him its fourth-largest investor. A roughly $4 trillion company losing its founder-chief in a single morning is the kind of event markets price first and analyse later.
How the board got here
The resignation followed a week of reporting that put the board's confidence in Huang under strain. The Wall Street Journal reported on 11 November that Nvidia's board was preparing to oust Huang, and that the board met late on Wednesday 11 November. The next morning, Huang had resigned. The Journal's word is "ousted"; Nvidia's own announcement says only that he resigned. This article reports the resignation as the confirmed fact and the Journal's account as the reported background behind it.
The New York Times reported on 11 November that Huang had a second affair, this time with Kimberly Powell, a Nvidia vice president of healthcare who reported to him, citing five people and video evidence. That report followed an earlier affair with Alice Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud company. United States authorities have concluded that Alice Huang was a Chinese intelligence asset. Beijing denies she is a spy.
Here the facts need care. The allegation that Alice Huang was an intelligence asset is a conclusion reported about her. Whether Huang himself was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation is a separate, unproven question — and it is the question Nvidia's board began investigating. On 8 November, the board launched a probe led by independent directors with outside counsel into whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. At the time, the board expressed confidence in him. Four days later, he had resigned.
Donald Trump, asked about the affair on Sunday, said Huang had "done an amazing job" and told him he had no idea the woman was a spy.
| Event | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Board launches probe into whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation | 8 Nov 2026 | Confirmed by Nvidia |
| Wall Street Journal reports board preparing to oust Huang | 11 Nov 2026 | Reported |
| New York Times reports second affair with Kimberly Powell | 11 Nov 2026 | Reported |
| Huang resigns as president, CEO and board member | 12 Nov 2026 | Confirmed by Nvidia |
| Q3 fiscal 2027 results and earnings call | 17 Nov 2026 | Scheduled |
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| A trader watches a monitor showing the NVDA share price falling in red on a candlestick chart |
Who runs Nvidia now
Colette Kress steps in as interim chief executive while remaining chief financial officer, a dual role that puts the person who knows Nvidia's finances best in charge of the transition. The board is searching for a permanent successor and says it will look at internal and external candidates.
Successor speculation is just that — speculation, not fact. Reports have pointed to Ian Buck, a senior Nvidia engineer, and to Kress herself as favoured names. Polymarket put an 83% chance on Huang resigning or being removed by year-end, but that is a prediction market with small trading volume — a measure of betting sentiment, not evidence.
Whoever takes the job permanently inherits a company at the centre of the AI build-out. The interim period matters: Kress must steady the share price, keep customers and partners confident, and deliver the 17 November results without the founder who has presented every earnings call for three decades.
What it means for the AI boom
Nvidia is the single most important company in the AI economy: its chips power the data centres of every major AI lab, and its roughly $4 trillion valuation makes it a bellwether for the sector. A sudden leadership change there is a market story, not just a company story, and it feeds the debate about whether the AI boom is overheating.
Readers of INORYVA will remember that this debate has been running all year. Our earlier look at whether the AI bubble is bursting examined a brutal week for AI stocks, and the Nvidia story now sits inside that same question: how much of the sector's value rests on a handful of companies, and on a handful of people?
The practical consequences run through Nvidia's biggest relationships. The company recently committed to a $3 billion investment in Meta, and the chip supply chain that links Nvidia to TSMC's funding for Anthropic and OpenAI depends on Nvidia's roadmap staying on track. None of those commitments has changed — Nvidia said explicitly that its roadmap continues — but counterparties will now be watching the new leadership for confirmation.
The cloud giants are watching too: the Microsoft, Google and Amazon cloud earnings for Q3 2026 showed how much AI spending flows through data centres, and Nvidia's chips sit at the bottom of it. If the succession is smooth, the market may treat this as a governance story that ends with the resignation. If it drags on, it becomes a roadmap story — and roadmap stories move share prices.
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| Close-up of a graphics processor chip labelled GPU Processor H100 SXM5 on a circuit board with green lighting in a server |
Key Takeaways
- Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia president, CEO and board member, effective immediately on 12 November 2026; no reason was given in the company's announcement.
- CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO while keeping her CFO role; Harvey C. Jones is the company's first-ever board chair; the board is searching for a permanent successor.
- Shares fell more than 10% in premarket trading (10.4% as of 8:59 am ET, per CNBC), after a drop of more than 20% over the past month.
- The Wall Street Journal reported on 11 November that the board was preparing to oust Huang; the New York Times reported a second affair. Both are reported, not announced — the resignation itself is the confirmed fact.
- A board probe launched on 8 November into whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation is unresolved; the spy allegation against Alice Huang is unproven as to Huang being targeted.
- Q3 fiscal 2027 results stay on schedule for Tuesday 17 November — the first test of the new leadership.
Conclusion
Jensen Huang built Nvidia from a 1993 start-up into a roughly $4 trillion company, and his resignation ends one of the longest and most consequential chief executive tenures in technology. The confirmed facts are narrow: he resigned, Colette Kress is interim chief executive, and the board is looking for a permanent successor. The reported background — the Journal's account of a board preparing to oust him, the Times' report of a second affair, and the unresolved probe into foreign intelligence targeting — explains why the market reacted so sharply, but none of it has been confirmed by the company.
The next milestone is fixed and near: third-quarter results on 17 November. Until then, the story is a leadership transition, not a business failure — and the difference between the two will be decided by what Kress and the board do next.
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