Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO; Kress Takes Over Interim Role

By Grace Kim

Nvidia said on Thursday, 12 November 2026, that Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive and director, effective immediately. Colette Kress, chief financial officer since September 2013, becomes interim chief executive and keeps the finance job. Harvey C. Jones, former chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys, becomes the board's first chair. The company release gives no reason.

The release states that operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap continue without interruption. Fiscal third-quarter results remain scheduled for Tuesday, 17 November, at about 1:20 p.m. Pacific, with the call at 2 p.m.

What did the market do?

Reuters reported shares down more than 10 percent in premarket trading. CNBC recorded a 10.4 percent drop as of 8:59 a.m. Eastern, after a decline of more than 20 percent over the past month.

The move began before the company used the word "resigned." The Block reported that Nvidia perpetual futures on Hyperliquid fell as much as 10 percent on Wednesday night, hitting a low near $156.14 and trading down 6.8 percent over 24 hours at about $158.86 by 7:50 p.m. Eastern. NVDAx, the tokenized Nvidia share from xStocks, dropped as much as 9 percent. Nasdaq after-hours trading fell about 8 percent in the same window. Kalshi's contract on Huang stepping down before 13 November jumped to 64 percent from about 37 percent. Polymarket showed a 67 percent chance he would be out by 12 November and 71 percent by 13 November.

Bernstein cut its Nvidia price target in half, from $400 to $200, on Thursday. Stacy Rasgon, senior analyst at Bernstein, told CNBC's Squawk Box Asia that the reported affair with a direct report made it "much tougher for the board to leave him in position."

Al Jazeera put the week's loss of market value above $600 billion. The Wall Street Journal noted the market value stood above $5 trillion weeks earlier and that this break was on course to wipe more than half a trillion dollars. Reuters still described Nvidia as a $4 trillion business. In early September, with the stock at $230.36, Nvidia stood at roughly 8 percent of the S&P 500.

Why did Huang leave?

The company did not say. Reuters reported pressure built after accounts that the 63-year-old, who is married, had an affair with a businesswoman US authorities suspect of spying for Beijing, and that the board met Wednesday to consider his removal after further reports of an affair with a senior executive who reported to him. CNBC reported Huang apologized on Sunday for being "unfaithful to my wife." The New York Times reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare. Huang has denied compromising national security or Nvidia secrets. No criminal charge appears in the release or in those accounts.

The verb itself carries information. Bloomberg reported Huang had been ousted. The Wall Street Journal reported he resigned, pointing to its account that the board had been preparing to remove him. Al Jazeera, citing the bylaws, reported directors could remove a chief executive with or without cause by majority vote on a board of eleven, with every member except Huang independent. The company said he resigned.

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and holds about 3.61 percent of the company, the fourth-largest investor, according to Reuters. The release does not say he is selling.

What continues unchanged?

The Sunday inquiry by independent directors, opened "in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort," remains open. The directors said they had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised.

"Colette has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position," Harvey Jones said in the release. "The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption."

Kress said: "NVIDIA's strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years."

Three Republican House chairs — Brian Mast, John Moolenaar and Rick Crawford — asked Huang on 4 November for a closed briefing on Nvidia's security protocols and his interactions with Alice Huang of Megaspeed, a Singapore-based customer, seeking 18 November. Senator Elizabeth Warren has pressed for public testimony on exports. Huang told Bloomberg on 29 October that Nvidia's dealings with Megaspeed were "normal and not unusual." A California class covering purchases from August 2017 to November 2018 is proceeding on claims that Nvidia and Huang understated crypto-mining demand; the court certified the class but did not find fraud.

What happens next?

For the quarter ended 26 July 2026, Nvidia reported revenue of $96.2 billion and guided fiscal third-quarter revenue to $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, assuming no data-center compute revenue from China. Gross margin was guided to 74.0 percent. Tuesday's report is the first document belonging to the interim regime, and the search for a permanent chief executive — internal or external — has no public date.