Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's president and chief executive on Thursday, ending a 33-year run atop the chipmaker he co-founded, after a week of reports linking him to a woman U.S. intelligence agencies suspect of spying for China. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor.
Nvidia announced the change in a statement and a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Huang also left the company's board, effective immediately. Neither document gave a reason for his departure, and the release included no statement from Huang. "The Board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry," Nvidia said.
Kress will keep her role as CFO while she serves as interim chief executive. The board said it will consider internal and external candidates for the permanent job. It also named director Harvey C. Jones, a former chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys, as its first-ever board chair.
"The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team," Jones said, adding that the company expects its "operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption."
A volatile day for the stock
Nvidia shares opened at $156.50, about 10% below Wednesday's close of $173.73, and fell as low as $148.80, a drop of more than 14%. They recovered much of that ground through the morning and were trading near $165 around 1 p.m. Eastern, down about 5% on the day. The stock has shed roughly $2 trillion in market value since its early-October peak, according to CNBC.
Nvidia's premarket slide dragged down futures on the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500, NBC News reported, though the broader market steadied as the session went on.
What led to the resignation
Huang acknowledged in an email to Nvidia employees on Sunday that he "was unfaithful to my wife," NBC News reported. U.S. intelligence agencies suspect the woman involved, businesswoman Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, of spying for China, according to CBS News and NBC News. The two are not related.
According to U.S. investigators cited by CBS News, Alice Huang had access to about 240,000 export-restricted AI chips through Megaspeed International, a Singapore data center company under investigation in the United States and Singapore over alleged chip smuggling into China. President Trump said this week that the FBI is investigating the ties between the two Huangs. China's Foreign Ministry has rejected the allegations, saying the United States should "stop fabricating so-called espionage narratives."
The New York Times separately reported, citing five people who worked at Nvidia, that Huang had a romantic relationship with an executive who reported to him. Nvidia has not publicly addressed that report.
Nvidia opened an internal investigation earlier this week, and its board met Wednesday night to discuss Huang's future, as TechEchelon reported.
Washington reacts
Trump, who had defended Huang earlier in the week, posted on Truth Social on Thursday that Apple's Tim Cook should take over. "NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place - TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!" he wrote. Cook stepped down as Apple's chief executive in September and is now the company's executive chairman.
On Capitol Hill, the resignation did little to slow the push for answers. Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Huang had agreed to appear before lawmakers and that he would issue a subpoena if talks broke down, according to CNBC. Mast and two other House committee chairs had asked Huang to attend a closed-door briefing on November 18.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said "Congress must demand answers from Mr. Huang and others at Nvidia." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the departure does not absolve the company, writing that "NVIDIA executives, and NVIDIA's board of directors still owe Congress answers about the company's compliance with U.S. export controls." House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the resignation "the right thing to do."
What comes next
Kress joined Nvidia as CFO in 2013 after senior finance roles at Microsoft, Cisco and Texas Instruments. She becomes the public face of the company at a delicate moment: Nvidia said it will still report third-quarter results on Tuesday, November 17, giving her a first test as interim chief within days.
Analysts warned that the change adds uncertainty to a company whose products sit at the center of the AI buildout. KeyBanc analyst John Vinh said Huang's exit brings "a material increase in strategic, organizational, and execution risk."