Jensen Huang, the man who built Nvidia from a graphics-card start-up into the company that supplies most of the world’s AI chips, has resigned. Nvidia said on Thursday 12 November that Huang has stepped down as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately. Chief financial officer Colette Kress becomes interim chief executive. The announcement ends a week in which the company’s share price slid and its board went from public support for Huang to a late-night meeting on his future. For anyone building, buying or investing in AI and robotics, it is one of the biggest leadership shocks the industry has seen.
What Nvidia has announced
According to Nvidia’s own release, Huang has resigned from all of his roles. Kress, who has been chief financial officer since 2013 and worked at Cisco and Microsoft before that, keeps her finance job while she acts as interim chief executive. The board has started a search for a permanent successor and says it will consider both internal and external candidates. It also named Harvey Jones, a former chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys, as its first-ever chair of the board.
Jones said the board has “full confidence” in Kress and the leadership team and expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption. Kress said she was committed to building on the foundation Huang created over 33 years. Nvidia also confirmed that it will still report its third-quarter results on Tuesday 17 November, with the earnings call following later that day in California.
Who is Colette Kress?
Kress, 59, has been Nvidia’s executive vice president and chief financial officer since she joined the company in September 2013. Nvidia’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission confirms that she keeps the finance job while she serves as interim chief executive, and that the board is searching for a permanent replacement.
Before Nvidia she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft, according to Nvidia; Fortune adds Texas Instruments to that list. Fortune reports that she has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University, and that during her time as finance chief Nvidia’s annual revenue grew from $4.13 billion in fiscal 2014 to $130.5 billion in fiscal 2025, while its workforce grew from roughly 8,000 to more than 40,000.
She was not publicly positioned as Huang’s successor, Fortune notes, and in a 2022 interview with the magazine she said reaching the C-suite was never necessarily her career goal. Her first big public test in the top job is Tuesday’s results.
How it got here
The company’s board put out a statement of confidence in Huang on Sunday 8 November, after reports about his personal conduct and his links to a woman US officials suspect of spying for China. CBS News reports that President Trump said this week the FBI is looking into the relationship. The woman, who is not related to Huang, was an executive at Megaspeed International, a Singapore data-centre firm that grew with access to Nvidia’s restricted chips. CBS reports that US investigators say she gained access to 240,000 chips that were barred from export to China, and that Megaspeed is under investigation in the US and Singapore for alleged smuggling. The Singapore firm has said it will cooperate with the US probe.
By Wednesday the picture had changed. The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to remove him, and Reuters reported that directors met that evening to decide his future. Under Nvidia’s bylaws, Huang could be removed “with or without cause” by a majority of the board, which has 11 directors and considers all but Huang independent. Shares fell sharply in after-hours trading on Wednesday and again on Thursday. CBS put the potential wipe-out at more than $700 billion at one stage, with the stock around 5% lower at midday in New York, near $165. Share prices were moving all day, so treat any single figure as a snapshot.
Why robotics and AI readers should care
Nvidia is not just the supplier of the chips that train and run frontier AI models. It is also the company pushing hardest to make “physical AI” mainstream, with its robot models, simulation tools and in-vehicle computers. Our recent coverage of its GR00T 2 robot model shows how much of that push has been tied to Huang himself, who has been the company’s chief salesman to carmakers, factory owners and governments. A Korean business paper reported on Thursday that physical-AI start-ups there are split on whether his departure matters, with chip customers expecting little immediate change and robotics firms worried that momentum could fade. That is commentary rather than fact, but it captures the mood.
There is also a financial angle. Investors have worried for weeks about how dependent the AI boom is on a handful of companies, and we reported earlier this month on the AI stocks sell-off and doubts over the Anthropic IPO. Reuters noted that investors fear for the strategy of financing customers, one that Huang championed. Anthropic’s roadshow is still under way, and a shaky Nvidia is one more variable for that deal.
The politics
Huang’s resignation does not close the export-control questions. Senator Elizabeth Warren said his departure does not absolve him or the company, and that Nvidia’s executives and board still owe Congress answers on compliance with US export rules. Lawmakers had already been pushing for tighter curbs on chip sales to China. Nvidia has not said what the internal investigation, which the board launched with outside counsel, found. It is also worth saying that the personal allegations in this story are reported by news organisations and have not been independently tested; we have stuck to what Nvidia and several outlets have confirmed.
What we do not know yet
- Who will take the job permanently. Nvidia has not said, and press reports of names are speculation until the board announces one.
- How long Kress will be interim chief executive.
- Whether the US investigations into Megaspeed and the chip flows will reach Nvidia itself.
- How customers and partners, including those in the UK, will react. Nvidia has been investing in British AI, including a £250m commitment to UK AI safety research, and has said its customer commitments continue.
What to watch next
The first real test is Tuesday’s earnings report, the first under Kress. Analysts will want to hear whether demand for Nvidia’s latest chips, which has been the engine of the AI build-out, is holding, and how the board plans to run the search for a successor. Expect the Anthropic listing, scheduled for next week, and every AI-chip start-up’s fundraising to be read through the same lens. We will update our coverage when Nvidia names a permanent chief executive.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Colette Kress?
Colette Kress, 59, is Nvidia’s chief financial officer and, since Jensen Huang resigned in November 2026, its interim chief executive. She joined Nvidia as CFO in September 2013 after nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft. She keeps the CFO job while the board searches for a permanent chief executive.