Jensen Huang resigns as NVIDIA CEO; Colette Kress takes interim role

Huang co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and had been its only CEO. The company said his resignation as president, chief executive and a board member took effect immediately on November 12. Harvey C. Jones was appointed the board’s first chair. It is a substantial leadership change at the chipmaker whose hardware and software underpin much of today’s AI development.

Kress has served as CFO since 2013 and will keep that job while acting as CEO. She is a familiar voice on NVIDIA’s earnings calls, but the interim title does not make her the chosen long-term successor. The board said it would consider internal and external candidates. It gave no timetable for the search.

The departure followed a turbulent week. On November 8, NVIDIA’s board opened an independent investigation after reports that Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort. At the time, the board said it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised. Two days later, the independent directors retained former acting U.S. attorney Joon H. Kim and law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct the inquiry.

News reports also described Huang’s relationships with a Chinese businesswoman and an NVIDIA employee. Those reports form part of the public context, but the company did not identify a specific reason for his resignation in its transition announcement. Nor has the board published findings from the investigation. Treating the allegations as established misconduct, or saying the inquiry has ended, would go beyond the available record.

The handover comes just before NVIDIA’s scheduled fiscal third-quarter earnings call on November 17. The company had already said Kress would provide written commentary on the results ahead of that call. Investors will therefore hear from the person now running NVIDIA at the first scheduled earnings update after Huang’s exit.

For customers building around NVIDIA’s GPUs, CUDA software and data-center systems, the immediate question is operational continuity. The transition announcement names a temporary chief and starts a search; it does not announce a change in the product roadmap or customer commitments. That distinction matters. A new CEO could eventually set different priorities, but there is no announced shift to report today.