Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO; Colette Kress Named Interim Chief

Tech
Written by Methodical Millions
The official Nvidia logo, with its green eye mark and wordmark, sitting just above a glowing horizon as dark green on the left gives way to gold-lime dawn light on the right

The board accepted his resignation as president, CEO and a director, effective immediately, and appointed its first-ever chair. Nvidia has not named a permanent successor.

By Methodical Jon | Nov 12, 2026

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) said Thursday, November 12th 2026, that founder Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board, effective immediately. The company's Form 8-K shows the board accepted that resignation on Wednesday, November 11th. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has been named interim CEO and will keep her CFO role while the board searches for a permanent successor, Nvidia said.

Shares sank 12% at the open and were down more than 6% as of 10:00 a.m. ET, according to NBC News. Reuters, in a report updated at 9:49 a.m. ET, said the stock tumbled more than 12% in early trading, putting the company on course to lose about $500 billion USD in market value.

What happened

In a statement dated November 12, Nvidia's board said Huang had resigned from all three roles at once. It appointed Kress, 59, as interim chief. Kress has been executive vice president and CFO since she joined Nvidia in September 2013, after nearly 25 years in finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft, the company said. CNBC also noted earlier stops at Texas Instruments.

The board also named Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever chair. Jones, 73, has been a director since 1993, the year Nvidia was founded, and previously served as CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys, according to the 8-K and the company's release. The board is starting a search that will consider internal and external candidates.

The release quotes Jones and Kress. It does not quote Huang. Jones said the board has "full confidence in Colette and the leadership team" and expects "operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption." Kress said she is "committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years."

The announcement follows a week of mounting pressure. On Sunday, Huang sent staff an email, published by Nvidia, admitting he had been "unfaithful to my wife." That admission followed reports of a relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based customer Megaspeed whom U.S. officials have described as a suspected Chinese intelligence asset, a claim China has denied. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported a second extramarital relationship, with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reports to him. Reuters said it could not immediately verify that report.

Why it matters

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and had been its only CEO. He remains one of its largest shareholders, with a stake of about 3.61%, Reuters reported. Until this week, the company had no obvious successor and no board chair. That vacuum is now being filled on an interim basis, five days before Nvidia reports third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on November 17th, at about 1:20 p.m. PT, as previously scheduled.

The business risk, as one investor put it, is not that the chip roadmap disappears. "The risk is not that Nvidia suddenly loses its technology roadmap ... that roadmap is largely visible for the next several years. The risk is execution. Jensen has been the chief conductor of an extraordinarily complex system," Michael Feldman of ClearBridge Investments told Reuters.

Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives told CNBC that Kress is "the only one internally that has this significant respect" and that he would "almost view her as more of a COO." He also said he expects her to serve about a year as interim CEO, with a permanent replacement likely coming from outside the company.

The money lesson

1. Key-person risk is no longer theoretical. For three decades, Nvidia's strategy, customer relationships and public face were the same person. When that person leaves in a week, the market has to put a number on it.

2. An interim CEO is a bridge, not a plan. Kress knows the books, the earnings call and the board. The board still has to find a permanent chief, from inside or outside, and tell investors who will own the next decade of the roadmap.

3. Governance can be built in a crisis, but it should have been built before one. Nvidia had no board chair and no named successor when this week began. It now has both a chair and an interim CEO. Founders and boards should put those roles in place when the company is calm, not when it is writing an 8-K.

4. Watch the first earnings call without him. The numbers on November 17th will matter. So will who is speaking, what they say about customers and the product cycle, and whether the company can separate its results from its leadership shock.

We talked about how hard, high-stakes choices get made in Episode 43 - Decision Making. Nvidia's board spent Wednesday night making one of the hardest calls in the company's history. The work of living with that decision starts now.

At the time of writing (about 10:30 a.m. ET, Nov 12, 2026), Nvidia shares were lower after opening down 12%, and Kress had been named interim CEO. This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice.

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