Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO After 33 Years — Colette Kress Takes Over as Interim Chief

November 12, 2026 Faizan Altaf

Jensen Huang, the man who built Nvidia from a small graphics-chip company into the most valuable company in the world, has resigned as its chief executive with immediate effect. The announcement on Thursday, 12 November 2026, ends a 33-year run at the top of the company and leaves the artificial intelligence (AI) industry without its most famous leader.

Nvidia said Huang had stepped down as president, chief executive officer and a member of its board of directors. The company’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, will lead Nvidia as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent replacement. Kress will keep her finance job at the same time.

The resignation comes after days of intense pressure on Huang over reports about his personal life, including an affair with a businesswoman whom United States authorities suspect of having links to Chinese intelligence. Nvidia’s board had opened an independent investigation into the matter, and its shares had already fallen sharply before the announcement.

Investors reacted at once. Nvidia shares fell more than 10 percent in premarket trading on Thursday — trading that takes place before the stock market officially opens — and dragged down the wider market. The company is worth around $4 trillion, so a fall of that size wipes hundreds of billions of dollars off its value in a single session.

What exactly happened

Nvidia announced the change on Thursday, 12 November. In a short statement, the company said Huang had “resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board, effective immediately.”

The statement thanked Huang for what it called his “immeasurable contributions” to the company and the industry over the past 33 years. It gave no reason for his departure, and Huang himself made no public comment.

Three decisions were announced at the same time:

Colette Kress becomes interim CEO. Nvidia’s long-serving chief financial officer takes charge of the company while the search for a permanent chief executive goes on. She keeps her CFO responsibilities as well.
A search for a permanent CEO begins. The board said it would consider candidates from inside Nvidia and from outside the company.
Harvey C. Jones becomes board chairman. Jones, a former chief executive of the chip-design software company Synopsys and a long-time Nvidia board member, becomes the company’s first-ever chairman of the board. He will oversee the search for the new chief executive.

The company also confirmed that its third-quarter results for fiscal year 2027 will be published on Tuesday, 17 November, exactly as planned. The results announcement and the earnings call with investors will go ahead on schedule.

Who is Colette Kress?

Colette Kress is not a new face at Nvidia. She joined the company in September 2013 and has served as its executive vice president and chief financial officer ever since — more than 13 years in one of the most important jobs at the company.

Before Nvidia, she built up nearly 25 years of experience in finance, including senior roles at two of the biggest names in technology, Cisco and Microsoft. That background means she knows the technology industry well, and she has been at the centre of Nvidia’s finances through the whole AI boom.

The board said it expects day-to-day operations, customer commitments and the company’s product plans to continue without interruption during the change of leadership. But an interim chief executive is, by definition, a temporary appointment. The real question for investors is who will run Nvidia in the long term — and whether that person can match Huang’s record.

How the scandal unfolded

Huang’s resignation is the end of a fast-moving scandal that has built up over the past week. Here is how events unfolded, step by step.

Early November: the board opens an investigation. Reports emerged about Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a former senior executive at Megaspeed, a data-centre company based in Singapore. The two are not related, despite sharing a surname. US authorities have concluded that Alice Huang was a Chinese intelligence asset, according to reports, and Washington has also investigated Megaspeed over suspicions that it helped China obtain advanced AI chips that are restricted under US export controls. Beijing has denied that Alice Huang is a spy.

Sunday, 8 November: Huang apologises. Huang sent a message to Nvidia employees in which he admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologised to his family and colleagues. “There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry,” he wrote, adding that he took full responsibility for the hurt he had caused. He also said he would cooperate fully with the board’s investigation and remained committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting US national security.

Monday, 9 November: the shares fall. Nvidia’s shares fell around 4.3 percent after the company disclosed the investigation and Huang’s message became public. The stock fell further in the next session, as investors worried about the uncertainty around the company’s leadership.

Wednesday, 11 November: the board meets. The crisis deepened when the New York Times reported that Huang had also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to him. The Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia’s board was preparing to remove Huang, and the board met on Wednesday to discuss his future. Nvidia shares fell around 8 percent in after-hours trading after the Journal’s report, although they had gained nearly 3 percent during normal trading earlier that day.

Thursday, 12 November: Huang resigns. Nvidia announced that Huang had resigned with immediate effect, ending the speculation about his future — and starting a new set of questions about the company’s.

US President Donald Trump had defended Huang days earlier. Speaking on Sunday, Trump said Huang had “done an amazing job for our country” and that the Nvidia chief had told him he had no idea the Chinese woman he had an affair with was a spy.

Why the markets reacted so sharply

To understand why one resignation moved the whole stock market, it helps to understand what Nvidia has become — and how closely the company is tied to its founder.

For years, Nvidia was best known to computer gamers who wanted the fastest graphics cards. But its chips turned out to be extremely good at doing many calculations at the same time, which is exactly what AI systems need. As the AI boom took off, Nvidia’s chips became the most sought-after product in the technology world. Reuters has described them as “the oil of the AI boom”, and Nvidia became the world’s most valuable company.

Huang became a celebrity chief executive in the process. He was mobbed by fans in Taiwan and South Korea, who asked him to sign books, posters and even their bodies. His appearances at events were so closely watched that share prices moved when he simply mentioned the name of another company.

That is why his sudden departure has shaken investors so much. Nvidia is not just any company: it sits at the centre of the AI industry, and Huang was the person who built that position over three decades. His exit raises immediate questions:

Who will lead the company? Nvidia needs a permanent chief executive who can manage its huge size, its demanding customers and its delicate position between the United States and China.
Will the AI boom keep going? Investor confidence in AI shares was already shaky. Technology giants have been spending enormous amounts of money on AI, and taking on debt to do it, which has raised doubts about whether the boom will pay off. Losing the industry’s biggest champion makes those doubts worse.
What happens to Nvidia’s investments? Under Huang, Nvidia poured its growing pile of cash back into the AI industry — into cloud computing providers, suppliers and the biggest AI research labs. That spending helped build the whole AI ecosystem. A new leader may spend that money differently.
What about China? Huang pushed hard to keep selling Nvidia’s chips in China, the world’s second-largest economy, and he built close ties with President Trump to protect that access. His departure could have far-reaching consequences for US chip export policy — the rules that decide which advanced chips American companies can sell to China.

What Huang built at Nvidia

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993, when he was 30 years old, and led it for 33 years — one of the longest runs of any chief executive in modern business. He took the company from near-bankruptcy in the 1990s to the top of the corporate world.

In the early years, Nvidia made graphics chips for video games. Under Huang, it moved into high-performance computing and then into artificial intelligence, betting that the same chips that drew pictures on a screen could also train AI systems. That bet paid off beyond anything the industry expected.

Huang is also a major shareholder in the company he founded. He owns about 3.61 percent of Nvidia, making him its fourth-largest investor.

His style was unusual for a chief executive of a company this size. He wore his trademark black leather jacket, spoke directly to engineers and customers, and built a personal following that few business leaders have ever matched. For many investors, Huang was Nvidia — which is exactly why his departure is so unsettling for them.

What happens next

The immediate focus is on Colette Kress and the board’s search for a permanent chief executive. The board will look at candidates from inside Nvidia and from outside, and the process will be overseen by the new chairman, Harvey Jones.

Investors will be watching closely for clues about the company’s direction. The next big moment comes on Tuesday, 17 November, when Nvidia reports its third-quarter results. Those numbers will show whether the company’s business is still growing strongly, whatever is happening at the top.

There are also questions that go beyond Nvidia itself. The board’s investigation into whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation may continue, and the affair has already raised concerns in Washington about national security and about how tightly the US should control exports of advanced AI chips to China. Some experts have warned that the controversy could be used by China hawks — politicians and officials who want a tougher line against Beijing — to push for stricter controls.

For now, though, the story is about a sudden and dramatic change at the top of the world’s most important AI company. After 33 years, the man who built Nvidia is gone. The company he leaves behind is bigger, richer and more powerful than almost any in history — but it must now prove it can thrive without him.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Jensen Huang resign from Nvidia?

Nvidia announced on 12 November 2026 that Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and board member with immediate effect. The company gave no reason. His resignation followed reports of extramarital affairs, including one with a woman US authorities suspect of links to Chinese intelligence, and an independent board investigation into whether he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation.

Who is Nvidia’s new chief executive?

Chief financial officer Colette Kress has been appointed interim chief executive. She keeps her CFO job as well. The board has begun a search for a permanent chief executive and will consider candidates from inside and outside the company.

How long was Jensen Huang chief executive of Nvidia?

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and led it for 33 years, until his resignation on 12 November 2026.

How did Nvidia’s shares react?

Nvidia shares fell more than 10 percent in premarket trading on Thursday, 12 November, after the resignation was announced. The shares had already fallen sharply in the days before, including a drop of about 4.3 percent on 9 November and an 8 percent fall in after-hours trading on 11 November.

Who is Harvey C. Jones?

Harvey C. Jones is a former chief executive of Synopsys, a company that makes software for designing computer chips, and a long-time member of Nvidia’s board. He has been appointed as Nvidia’s first-ever chairman of the board and will oversee the search for a permanent chief executive.

When does Nvidia report its next results?

Nvidia will publish its third-quarter results for fiscal year 2027 on Tuesday, 17 November 2026, as previously scheduled.

Conclusion

Jensen Huang’s resignation is one of the biggest corporate stories of the year. In a single week, the most celebrated chief executive in the technology industry went from apologising to his employees to leaving the company he founded. Nvidia now faces a leadership contest, a nervous stock market and hard questions about its future — all while the AI boom it helped create continues at full speed. Whether the company can keep growing without the man who built it is the question that will define the technology industry in the months ahead.

Sources

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

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