Technology

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

Nvidia said Huang stepped down as president, chief executive and director with immediate effect. Harvey C. Jones becomes the company's first board chair, and third-quarter results remain set for 17 November.

By Tumisang Bogwasi November 12, 2026 4 min read

Jensen Huang is surrounded by students at Stanford University on 30 April 2026 (file). Photo: Anderseidesvik / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

SANTA CLARA, California – Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and a member of the board of Nvidia, effective immediately, the chipmaker’s board announced on Thursday, 12 November. Huang co-founded the company in 1993 and led it for 33 years.

Chief financial officer Colette Kress, 59, has agreed to serve as interim CEO and will keep her roles as executive vice president and CFO until a permanent successor is named. The board said it is starting a search and will consider internal and external candidates. It also appointed director Harvey C. Jones, 73, as its first-ever chair of the board.

Highlights

Jensen Huang has resigned as Nvidia’s president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately, the company said on 12 November.
Chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while keeping her finance role, and the board will consider internal and external candidates.
Director Harvey C. Jones, a former Synopsys CEO on the board since 1993, becomes Nvidia’s first-ever board chair.
Nvidia shares fell more than 10% in premarket trading, Reuters reported, and the company kept its 17 November results date.

What the filing says

In a Form 8-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Nvidia said the board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday, 11 November, the night directors met to decide his future, as Brimco reported this morning. The board appointed Kress and Jones the same day. The filing is signed by Kress as interim CEO.

The filing and the press release give no reason for the resignation, and the 8-K does not disclose any severance, separation or equity arrangements for Huang. Huang was not quoted in the announcement, CNBC noted.

Statements

“The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption,” Jones said in the release.

Kress said she was “committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,” adding: “Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders.”

The board’s statement did not refer to the allegations that have engulfed the company in the past week, The Guardian noted. “Jensen’s contributions to NVIDIA are profound,” it said. “The Board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry.”

Who is running Nvidia

Kress joined Nvidia as CFO in September 2013 and previously spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft, according to the company. Jones has sat on Nvidia’s board since 1993 and has been managing partner of Square Wave Ventures, a private family office, since 2004.

He was previously chief executive and executive chairman of chip-design software maker Synopsys. Nvidia had not had a separate board chair before.

How it came to this

Pressure on Huang built over a week. On 8 November the board opened an independent investigation into reports that he had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, after he admitted in a memo to staff that he had been “unfaithful” to his wife.

Media reports said the affair was with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed whom US authorities suspect of being a Chinese intelligence asset. The two are not related. Huang has denied any knowledge that she worked for the Chinese government, and Beijing has denied that she is a spy.

The board later retained former acting US Attorney Joon H. Kim and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to run the probe. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported a second affair, with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reported to him. Hours later, The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to oust him.

Market reaction and results

Nvidia shares fell more than 10% in premarket trading on Thursday, Reuters reported, while TechCrunch put the premarket drop at more than 11%. TechCrunch said the company had lost more than $300 billion in market value since Friday. As of Wednesday’s close, the stock was down about 7% this year, CNBC said.

Huang owns about 3.6% of Nvidia, making him its fourth-largest investor, Reuters said. He will leave the board as well as the chief executive role.

“The risk is not that Nvidia suddenly loses its technology roadmap … that roadmap is largely visible for the next several years. The risk is execution,” Michael Feldman, portfolio manager at ClearBridge Investments, told Reuters.

Nvidia said it will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results as scheduled on Tuesday, 17 November, at about 1:20 p.m. Pacific time, with an earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific time. That is 23:20 on 17 November and midnight in Botswana time. The release confirmed the date was unchanged but did not comment on guidance.

Sources

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