Jensen Huang has resigned as Nvidia’s president, chief executive and a member of its board, effective immediately, according to the company’s November 12 announcement. His departure ends a 33-year run at the chipmaker he co-founded in 1993 and comes four days after the board announced an independent investigation into reports that he may have been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation.
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer since 2013, will serve as interim CEO while continuing in her finance role. The board will consider internal and external candidates for a permanent successor. It also appointed longtime director Harvey C. Jones as Nvidia’s first board chair. The company’s transition announcement gave no reason for Huang’s resignation.
How the investigation began
Scrutiny intensified in late October after reports linked Huang to Alice Huang, a business executive associated with Singapore-based AI infrastructure company Megaspeed. US Senator Elizabeth Warren cited that reporting on October 29 and called for answers about the relationship and Nvidia’s chip sales. The Associated Press reported that the two had an affair and that China denied trying to ensnare Nvidia’s chief executive.
On November 8, Nvidia’s board said a committee of independent directors would oversee an investigation with outside counsel. The board said at the time that it had no reason to believe US national security or Nvidia’s confidential information had been compromised. Huang apologised to his family and colleagues in a message to employees and said he would cooperate.
Two days later, the independent directors said they had retained former acting US attorney Joon H. Kim and his firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Nvidia disclosed no findings from the inquiry in its leadership announcement.
Why US lawmakers are looking at chip sales
In a November 11 letter to the White House and the Commerce and State departments, senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked officials to preserve records connected to Nvidia and Megaspeed. Citing earlier reporting, the senators said the Singapore-based company had purchased more than $4.8 billion in advanced Nvidia chips since June 2024. They also cited a reported US inquiry into possible diversion of chips to China. The letter sets out the lawmakers’ concerns and requests records. It does not establish an export violation.
The dispute matters to Nvidia because US licensing rules affect which advanced processors it can sell into China. In its annual filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said export restrictions had already hurt its competitive position. It also warned that limits on where it can sell or support products could encourage customers to turn to other suppliers.
Kress takes over as the board searches for a successor
Kress joined Nvidia from Cisco in 2013 after holding senior finance roles at Microsoft. Her time as CFO spans Nvidia’s shift from a business best known for gaming graphics cards to a major supplier of data centre hardware. As interim CEO and CFO, she will oversee that business while the directors look for a permanent chief executive. Jones, a former chief executive of chip-design software maker Synopsys, said the board expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption.
Nvidia shares fell sharply. The Associated Press reported that the stock was down 14% at the opening bell on November 12. Nvidia said it would release its quarterly results on November 17 as scheduled. That earnings call gives investors an early opportunity to hear how Kress plans to manage the transition.
What Huang’s departure means for the AI industry
Huang founded Nvidia with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. The company’s graphics processors gained an audience in gaming, then found a much larger role in scientific computing and AI. Nvidia’s investment in CUDA gave developers a way to use its GPUs for general-purpose computing. As AI models grew, that software ecosystem helped researchers and cloud providers build systems around Nvidia hardware.
The company’s customers include cloud providers that buy Nvidia processors and also develop accelerators of their own. Its annual filing identifies customer-designed chips and rival suppliers as competitive risks. The decisions facing Kress and the board extend beyond choosing a successor. They include how to keep hardware and software customers committed, manage US export rules and sustain investment in new processors and networking technology.
The search for a permanent CEO and the independent investigation now proceed in parallel. The first will determine who leads Nvidia after Kress’s interim term. The second will examine what happened and whether sensitive information was compromised.
