Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO, Colette Kress Named Interim Chief and Harvey Jones Becomes First Board Chair
Nvidia's board accepted the founder's resignation effective immediately and began a search for a permanent chief. The company says its third-quarter results are still due on Tuesday.
Outspoken Digest Technology Desk
Thursday, November 12, 2026/3 min read
Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and director of Nvidia, effective immediately, the company said in a press release filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. Chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim chief executive while keeping her finance role, and the board has begun a search that will weigh internal and external candidates.
The announcement ended the question this desk raised in the morning, when newspaper reports said the board was preparing to act. Yahoo Finance's live blog logged the company's statement at 1:59 p.m. UTC, after a morning of premarket trading with no word from the company.
What did Nvidia's announcement say?
According to the company's own release, Kress, who joined Nvidia in September 2013 after nearly 25 years in finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft, will run the company until a permanent successor is named. Huang also leaves the board. Harvey Jones, described in the release as a technology executive and venture investor who once ran Synopsys, becomes the first chair the board has ever had. Fortune reported that Jones has sat on the board since the company's founding in 1993.
Jones said in the release that the board has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team, and Kress said Nvidia's strength has always come from its people. The release carries no statement from Huang, and Nvidia said its third-quarter fiscal 2027 results are still scheduled for Tuesday 17 November, with a call at 2 p.m. Pacific.
Why did Huang resign?
The release itself gives no reason. Fortune and Yahoo Finance tie the resignation to the sequence that began on Sunday, when the board opened an independent inquiry after reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. On that day Huang told staff by email "I was unfaithful to my wife," according to NBC News, and the board said it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised.
On Wednesday the New York Times reported, as NBC News relayed, that Huang had a second relationship, with an Nvidia executive who reported to him, citing current and former employees. NBC said it had not confirmed that report. The woman described by US officials as a suspected Chinese intelligence asset has not commented publicly, according to Al Jazeera, and China's foreign ministry has called the claims baseless. Nobody has been charged with anything, and none of the allegations has been tested in any proceeding.
How did the market and Washington react?
Yahoo Finance reported that Nvidia shares dropped as much as 13 percent at the open, taking its market value below $4 trillion, before paring part of the loss. Chip rivals AMD and Broadcom rose, while data-centre firms that lean on Nvidia, such as CoreWeave and Nebius, fell hardest. Analysts quoted by Yahoo Finance and CNBC cut price targets, with Oppenheimer downgrading the stock and removing its target, and Bernstein moving to market perform.
Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons have asked the administration to preserve records on chip exports to China and on the reported intelligence operation, Yahoo Finance said. Republican chairmen in the House had already asked Huang for a closed-door briefing on 18 November.
The next dated event is Tuesday's earnings report, the first under Kress. Investors will want to hear whether she is a caretaker or a candidate, and how quickly the board expects to name a permanent successor.
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