Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO, ending 33-year run amid spy-affair scandal
Photo: Substack (file photo)Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive, president and board member, effective immediately, the company announced on Thursday — ending a 33-year run at the head of the chipmaker he built into the world's most valuable company, and plunging the artificial intelligence boom into uncertainty.
Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, 59, will serve as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent successor, considering both internal and external candidates. Kress, who has been Nvidia's finance chief since 2013, will keep her CFO responsibilities during the search. The board also named longtime director Harvey C. Jones, the former Synopsys chief executive, as its first-ever chairman.
Nvidia said its board accepted Huang's resignation on Wednesday. The company's announcement gave no reason for his departure and included no statement from him. Huang, 63, will not remain on the board. He is Nvidia's fourth-largest investor, with a stake of about 3.61%.
Shares fell more than 10% in premarket trading on Thursday and slumped as much as 14% during the session, to their lowest in nearly 16 months, before paring losses to close down 4.3%. The stock has now fallen about 11% this week and roughly 26% since The New York Times first reported on October 29 on Huang's relationship with a woman U.S. authorities have concluded was working for Beijing.
Pressure on Huang had been mounting for days. The Times reported that he had an affair with Alice Huang — no relation — a former executive at Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed International, whom U.S. intelligence agencies have determined is a Chinese intelligence asset. Beijing has denied she is a spy. Megaspeed, a major buyer of Nvidia chips with priority access to them, has also been investigated by Washington over suspicions it helped China obtain advanced AI chips restricted under U.S. export controls, according to media reports.
The controversy deepened on Wednesday, when the Times reported that Huang also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to him. The Associated Press said it could not independently confirm that second account. Huang admitted to employees on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife, and apologized to senior executives on Monday.
Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation on November 8 into whether Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, hiring Joon Kim, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and a former acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to lead it. The board has said it has no reason to believe U.S. national security or company secrets were compromised, and the FBI is separately examining whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. The espionage allegations remain disputed and unproven, and no criminal finding has been made.
President Donald Trump, who has maintained close ties with Huang, said on Sunday that the Nvidia chief had "done an amazing job for our country" and that Huang had told him he had no idea the woman was a spy. The Times reported on Thursday that Trump called Huang on Tuesday and urged him to fight for his job. On Thursday, Trump said former Apple chief executive Tim Cook should replace Huang at Nvidia.
Congress is moving quickly. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott sent letters on Thursday to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and to Huang, asking them to testify over recent developments at Nvidia. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Thursday that a growing consensus in Congress favors tougher restrictions on China's access to advanced artificial intelligence chips, and lawmakers from both parties are pushing for tighter export curbs following the reports.
Huang's exit leaves a vacuum at the center of the AI industry. For years, Nvidia's chips — the workhorse of AI systems — made it the world's most valuable company, worth about $4 trillion, and turned Huang into a rock-star chief executive, mobbed by fans in Taiwan and South Korea. He personally steered the company's strategy of pouring its swelling cash pile back into cloud providers, suppliers and the biggest AI labs, bankrolling much of the boom. Investors are now questioning whether the ecosystem he built can thrive without him, at a moment when doubts are already growing about whether the enormous spending on AI infrastructure will pay off.
Nvidia said it still plans to report third-quarter results on November 17, with Kress now speaking as both chief executive and chief financial officer.
Sources: Reuters, "Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to step down in big blow to AI boom" (Nov. 12, 2026, full text verified); Reuters, "Colette Kress, the CFO who challenged Huang's bets, is Nvidia's interim CEO" (Nov. 12, 2026, full text verified); Reuters, "Tougher curbs on AI chip sales to China likely after Nvidia CEO resigns" (Nov. 12, 2026, full text verified); Reuters, "Trump says ex Apple CEO Cook is 'a legend', should replace Huang at Nvidia" (Nov. 12, 2026, full text verified); Associated Press, via TechXplore, "Who is Colette Kress, Nvidia's interim CEO? Longtime exec takes top spot after Jensen Huang resigns" (Nov. 12, 2026, full text verified). Event date verified: November 12, 2026 (resignation announced; board accepted resignation November 11).
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