Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO and CFO Colette Kress steps in as interim chief

Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) said on Thursday, November 12, that founder Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and board member effective immediately, and named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress interim CEO, according to the company's announcement.

A CFO in the top job, and a board chair for the first time

The board said Kress, who has been chief financial officer since September 2013, will keep that role while serving as interim CEO "until a permanent successor has been named." It is starting a search and "will consider internal and external candidates."

The board also appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever chair. Nvidia described Jones as an entrepreneur, technology executive and venture investor for over 30 years who previously served as chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys. Until now the board had no chair; the earlier statements from the company came from "the NVIDIA Board" as a whole.

Jones said in the announcement that "we expect the company's 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 gave no reason for the resignation and did not include a statement from Huang.

Four days from the first board statement to the exit

The resignation follows a run of company statements. On Sunday, November 8, the board announced an independent investigation "in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort," and said it had "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised." The same statement said the board had "confidence in Jensen and his leadership team."

Huang wrote the same day in an email to employees: "I was unfaithful to my wife." He also said he supported the investigation and would "cooperate fully." On Tuesday, November 10, the independent directors said they had retained Joon H. Kim, a former acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct the inquiry.

The November 12 announcement does not say whether that investigation has concluded or how it relates to the resignation. FinanceInTime covered the earlier steps here.

The stock fell 4.34% on the day

Nvidia shares declined 4.34% on Thursday after the announcement, CNBC reported. The company's market value stayed near the $4 trillion mark: CNBC said it "hovered under $4 trillion in market cap for most of the day" and finished above that level.

Third-quarter results come on November 17

Nvidia said it will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, at about 1:20 p.m. PT (4:20 p.m. ET), "as previously scheduled," with its earnings call at 2 p.m. PT. The report will be the first under an interim chief executive.

What the results can and cannot settle about the handover

We think the first test of this transition is narrower than the headlines suggest. A CFO who has run the finance organization for more than 13 years is a continuity choice, and the board's own wording stresses customers and the product roadmap rather than strategy. On the facts above, the figures Nvidia reports on November 17 will describe a quarter that Huang ran, so they cannot show how the company performs without him.

The threat is a long search: the company has no permanent chief executive, a newly created chair and, by the board's own account, a leadership team asked to carry customer commitments through the change. The opportunity is that a board with a chair of its own can set a clearer succession process than the company had a week ago. We would watch what Nvidia says about capital spending, supply commitments and customer contracts on the call, and whether a permanent CEO is named from inside or outside; our view would change if the investigation's outcome turns out to bear on export or security questions the filings do not yet address.

The view in this final section is FinanceInTime's editorial opinion, for information only. It is not investment, tax, legal or other advice, and it does not take your circumstances into account. Forecasts are uncertain and past results do not guarantee future ones.