NVIDIA board names CFO Colette Kress interim CEO after Jensen Huang resigns immediately

NVIDIA’s board announced that Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive officer and director effective immediately, ending his tenure as the company’s founder-era leader. The board named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress interim CEO while she retains the finance role, and appointed Harvey C. Jones as the company’s first-ever board chair. A permanent successor search will consider internal and external candidates. The announcement followed a sharp share-price decline and reports of congressional requests for briefings and law-enforcement scrutiny.

The board’s press release, quoted by the source, described Kress as having led NVIDIA’s finance organization since 2013 and cited her role in growth and operations. Jones’s biography in the release emphasized technology executive and venture investing experience, including leadership at Synopsys. Market data in the report said shares fell about 8% after hours on Nov. 11 and that the episode erased hundreds of billions in market value. The release did not detail the reasons for Huang’s departure or address the reported investigations.

The reported trigger was a national-security story tying Huang’s relationship with a Singapore-linked customer, Megaspeed, to possible diversion of advanced AI chips to China, alongside classified-memo allegations and personal conduct disclosures. NVIDIA had been central to U.S.-China technology controls because its processors power data centers used for AI. The episode shows how export-control enforcement, counterintelligence concerns and corporate governance can converge around a single executive, especially when a firm lacks a public succession plan after decades of founder control.

The change affects shareholders, employees, suppliers and customers because NVIDIA supplies core AI computing infrastructure and has long been led by one person. The share-price decline reflected investor concern about governance risk after reports of a board investigation. Policymakers and export-control authorities have an interest in whether NVIDIA’s customer vetting and compliance structures withstand scrutiny. The interim leadership structure places financial stewardship, not product leadership, at the top during a transition that touches U.S.-China technology competition.