Jensen Huang, the co-founder who built Nvidia into the world's most valuable supplier of artificial intelligence chips, has resigned as the company's president, chief executive and a member of its board of directors with immediate effect. The company announced the decision on Thursday, bringing an abrupt end to 33 years of leadership at the heart of the AI boom.
Nvidia's board has appointed Colette Kress, the company's executive vice-president and chief financial officer, as interim chief executive. Kress, who has been with Nvidia since 2013, will continue to hold her CFO responsibilities while serving as interim chief until a permanent successor is named. The board has begun a search for a new permanent chief executive and will consider both internal and external candidates.
The board also appointed Harvey C. Jones, 73, a former chief executive of Synopsys and a longtime Nvidia board member, as its first-ever chairman. The company thanked Huang for what it called his immeasurable contributions, but gave no reason for his resignation and included no comment from him in its announcement.
The resignation follows a week of mounting scandal. The New York Times first reported in October 2025 about a business connection between Huang and a Singapore-based tech executive whom United States intelligence officials suspect of spying for China. On 8 November, Nvidia announced that independent directors, assisted by outside legal counsel, would investigate whether Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence operation.
The controversy intensified over the weekend after the New York Times reported that Huang had also had an affair with an executive who reports to him. Huang admitted on Sunday that he had had an extramarital affair, without naming the other party, and apologised to his family and colleagues. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the board was preparing to oust him, and the board convened on Wednesday night to weigh the decision.
Investors reacted sharply. Nvidia shares fell more than 13 per cent in pre-market trading on Thursday after the news broke, and closed 4.3 per cent lower at $166.19, their lowest close since 30 March 2026, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The slide added to a fall of about 8 per cent earlier in the week as reports of the board's deliberations emerged.
Huang, 63, owns about 3.6 per cent of Nvidia's stock and is the company's fourth-largest shareholder. He co-founded the company in 1993 and built it from a graphics-chip maker into the dominant supplier of the processors that power artificial intelligence, making him one of the most recognisable chief executives on Wall Street. There is no obvious successor: Huang had no succession plan in place, with dozens of executives reporting directly to him.
Kress told staff in an internal memo that the period had been extraordinarily difficult and promised more information in the coming days about the company's future, adding that she would host a company meeting on 18 November. Longtime Nvidia engineer Ian Buck had emerged as a leading internal candidate among investors and analysts even before Huang's departure.
The leadership change comes at a sensitive moment for the company. Nvidia is scheduled to report its third-quarter fiscal 2027 financial results on Tuesday, 17 November, followed by an earnings call, and the results will now be presented by a company in transition rather than by the chief executive who has fronted every such call for three decades.
For the wider technology industry, the departure of the man who became the public face of the AI boom is a seismic event. Whether Nvidia can maintain its dominance without its founder at the helm — and who the board chooses to replace him — will now be one of the most closely watched questions in global business.
