Jensen Huang has resigned as Nvidia CEO, ending a 33-year run at the top of the company he cofounded in 1993. Nvidia’s board said Thursday that Huang is leaving his roles as president, CEO and board member effective immediately, and that CFO Colette Kress will lead the company on an interim basis. The move follows a week of reports about Huang’s personal relationships, including one with a woman alleged to be a Chinese intelligence asset.
What Nvidia Announced About Its CEO Change
The announcement came in a short statement from the board on November 12. It confirmed three changes at once, and none of them included a quote from Huang himself.
- Jensen Huang resigned as president, CEO and director, effective immediately.
- CFO Colette Kress becomes interim CEO and keeps her finance job at the same time.
- Former Synopsys CEO Harvey C. Jones becomes the first-ever Chair of Nvidia’s board.
The board said it has started a search for a permanent CEO and will look at both internal and external candidates. It also said it expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue “without interruption.”
Who Is Colette Kress?
Kress has been Nvidia’s CFO since September 2013, so she has steered the company’s finances through its entire rise as the main supplier of AI chips. Before Nvidia, she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at companies including Cisco and Microsoft. In the statement, she said she is committed to building on the foundation Huang created and that the focus stays on customers, partners, developers and shareholders.
A First-Ever Board Chair
Nvidia has never had a separate board chair before, which shows how much the company was built around Huang. Harvey Jones is a longtime tech executive and venture investor who previously ran chip design software maker Synopsys. Splitting the chair role from the CEO job is a common governance step when a board wants tighter oversight.
Why Jensen Huang Left Nvidia
The board’s statement does not give a reason for the resignation. Still, it comes four days after the board opened an investigation into Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang (no relation), a former executive at Singapore-based cloud provider Megaspeed who was reported to be working for China’s Ministry of State Security. We covered that probe when the board investigation began on November 8.
Pressure grew on November 11, when The New York Times reported a second relationship, this one with an Nvidia executive who reported directly to Huang. Soon after, reports said the board was meeting to decide his future, as we noted in our story on the possible ouster. China has denied that Alice Huang was a spy.
A source told WIRED that the relationship with a subordinate and the Megaspeed business ties likely weighed more heavily on the board than the espionage claims. That account is unconfirmed by Nvidia. Earlier in the week, even President Trump’s comments suggested many expected Huang to keep his job.
Nvidia Leadership Change at a Glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Departing CEO | Jensen Huang, cofounder, led Nvidia since 1993 |
| Effective date | Immediately, announced November 12, 2026 |
| Interim CEO | Colette Kress, also remains CFO |
| New board chair | Harvey C. Jones, former Synopsys CEO |
| Permanent CEO search | Internal and external candidates |
| Next earnings report | Tuesday, November 17, about 1:20 p.m. PT |
What It Means for the AI Chip Industry
Nvidia sells the GPUs that power most of today’s AI training and inference, and demand has outrun supply for years. Huang was the public face of that run, from keynote stages to policy talks in Washington. He was also a loud critic of US export controls on chips to China, a stance that now draws fresh scrutiny given the Megaspeed reports.
For now, the company’s product plans look unchanged. Recent launches like the Vera Rubin platform and the Nemotron open models were built by large teams, and the board stressed that the roadmap continues. The bigger open question is who will set Nvidia’s direction, and its tone with governments, over the next decade.
Investors will get their first real look at the new setup on November 17, when Nvidia reports third-quarter fiscal 2027 results as previously scheduled. Expect analysts to press Kress on leadership, China and customer demand.
What This Means for You
If you use AI tools every day, this change will not affect the chatbots or apps you rely on right away. But Nvidia’s chips sit underneath almost all of them, so its leadership matters over time.
- Expect no immediate changes to GPU availability or pricing, since the board says commitments continue as planned.
- Watch the November 17 earnings call for any hints on strategy shifts or China sales.
- If you invest in AI stocks, leadership uncertainty can mean more price swings in the short term.
- Keep an eye on who becomes permanent CEO, because that choice will shape Nvidia’s relationships with AI labs and regulators.
Nvidia’s chips will keep shipping, but the company just lost the leader whose personality was a big part of its brand.
You can follow every update on this story in our AI news coverage.
Sources
Primary source: Nvidia’s CEO transition announcement. Additional reporting from The Verge and WIRED.
Conclusion
Jensen Huang’s exit closes one of the longest founder-CEO runs in tech, and it happened with stunning speed. Nvidia has handed the wheel to its longtime CFO, Colette Kress, and created a board chair role for the first time. The company insists nothing changes for customers, but the search for a permanent leader will decide how the world’s most important AI chipmaker moves forward. The November 17 earnings report is the next big moment to watch.
