Jensen Huang resigns as NVIDIA's CEO, effective immediately; CFO Colette Kress becomes interim CEO and Harvey Jones the board's first chair

NVIDIA announced on November 12 that co-founder Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and a member of the board, effective immediately. Chief financial officer Colette Kress becomes interim CEO and keeps the CFO role while the board searches for a permanent successor, considering internal and external candidates. In an 8-K filed at 13:52 UTC, NVIDIA said the board accepted Huang's resignation on November 11.

WHAT NVIDIA ANNOUNCED

• Kress, 59, has been CFO since September 2013. Before NVIDIA she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at companies including Cisco and Microsoft, the company said.
• The board appointed Harvey C. Jones, 73, a director since 1993 and a former CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys, as its first-ever chair. NVIDIA had run without a board chair.
• Jones said the board expects the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption. The release does not quote Huang and gives no reason for his resignation. AP and NBC News tied it to the reports about his relationships.
• NVIDIA still plans to report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, at about 1:20 p.m. PT.

HOW IT GOT HERE

• November 8: Huang told staff he had been unfaithful to his wife. The board opened an independent investigation into reports that he was the target of a foreign intelligence effort and said it had confidence in him.
• November 10: the independent directors retained Joon H. Kim and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to run that investigation.
• November 11: The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to oust him, The New York Times reported a relationship with an NVIDIA vice president who reported to him, and Bloomberg reported that the board was working with an outside firm on CEO candidates. Our earlier story has the details.

WHY IT MATTERS FOR AI

• NVIDIA is the dominant supplier of AI chips. Huang co-founded it in 1993 and was its only CEO until today.
• Kress is a finance executive, and the board says the product roadmap is unchanged. The first public test is the November 17 earnings call.

WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW

Who the permanent CEO will be, how long Kress serves, whether the board's independent investigation will publish its findings now that Huang has left, and what Huang does next.