Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive, president and board member of Nvidia with immediate effect, the company's board announced on Thursday, November 12, 2026. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement, and former Synopsys chief Harvey C. Jones becomes the first chair of the board in Nvidia's history.[1][2] Huang co-founded the chipmaker in 1993. He leaves after a week of reports about two extramarital relationships, one of them with a business executive US intelligence officials suspect of spying for China.[2][4] Nvidia shares opened about 13% lower at $151.01.[7]
 | |
| Announced | Thursday, November 12, 2026 (board statement)[1] |
|---|---|
| Outgoing CEO | Jensen Huang, co-founder, CEO since 1993[1][3] |
| Effective | Immediately, also leaves the board[1][2] |
| Interim CEO | Colette Kress, also stays CFO[1][2] |
| New board chair | Harvey C. Jones, the first ever[1][4] |
| Permanent CEO | Search under way, internal and external candidates[1][2] |
| Shares, Nov 12 open | $151.01, down about 13% from $173.73[7] |
| Close, Nov 12 | $166.19, down 4.34% (low $148.80)[15][16] |
| Shares, 15:33 GMT | $163.43, down about 5.9%[7] |
| Congress | Agreed to testify before Thanksgiving, says Rep. Brian Mast[11][12][13] |
| Senate | Asked to testify to the Senate Banking Committee on December 3[17][18][19] |
| Next results | Tuesday, November 17, about 1:20 p.m. PT[1] |
What Nvidia announced
Nvidia's board said Huang "has resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board, effective immediately".[1] The statement carries no comment from Huang himself, which The Verge also pointed out.[4] According to The Verge, the board accepted his resignation letter after a meeting late on Wednesday night.[4]
Three changes happen at once. Colette Kress, who has been chief financial officer since September 2013, becomes interim CEO and keeps the CFO job until a permanent chief is named. Before Nvidia she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at companies including Cisco and Microsoft. Harvey C. Jones, a former CEO and executive chairman of the chip design software firm Synopsys, becomes chair of the board, a post Nvidia had never had before.[1][3][4] The board also said it is "initiating a search" for a permanent CEO and will look at people inside and outside the company.[1][2]
"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," Jones said in the statement.[1][2] Kress said she is "committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years".[1][4]
Why Huang left
The pressure built over about two weeks. On October 29, The New York Times reported US concerns that Huang had been the target of a Chinese intelligence effort, and on Sunday, November 8, Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation, as we covered in our running Nvidia stock and spy probe article. Huang admitted to an affair over that weekend and apologised to his family and shareholders in a memo to staff, according to CNBC and The Verge.[3][4] The woman involved is an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud company that is a big Nvidia customer, whom US intelligence officials believe was working for China, the reports say.[2][4]
The turning point came on Wednesday, November 11. The New York Times reported that Huang had also had a relationship with an Nvidia executive who reported to him, and The Wall Street Journal then reported that the board was preparing to remove him. CBS News confirmed the board's plans through two sources that night.[2][4] Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon told CNBC the report about a direct report made it "much tougher for the board to leave him in position".[3] US lawmakers had also called for Huang to step down.[3]
We are not naming the two women. Neither has been charged with anything, and the allegations about spying come from unnamed intelligence officials quoted in news reports.
What it means for Nvidia shares
Nvidia opened at $151.01 on Nasdaq on Thursday, down about 13% from Wednesday's close of $173.73. It dipped as low as $148.80 in the first minutes, then recovered to about $154.60 at 14:33 GMT, down roughly 11%, while the Nasdaq Composite was down about 1.2%.[7] The recovery continued: at 15:33 GMT the stock was at $163.43, down about 5.9%, after a high of $166.00.[7] It closed the regular session at $166.19, down $7.54 or 4.34%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.39%.[15][16] Before the bell, CNBC had the stock 11.9% lower at 9:14 a.m. ET, and CBS News reported that the company was on track to lose more than $700 billion in market value since the close of trading last week.[3][6] The shares had already fallen 9.6% on Monday and Tuesday after the board opened its probe.[6]
Analysts are split on how much one person is worth. Bernstein cut the stock to Market Perform and halved its price target from $400 to $200, CNBC reported, and Oppenheimer also cut its rating to Market Perform,[8] and the BBC quoted Rasgon's note saying "we've had enough and prefer to watch from the sidelines".[3][5] Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives values the stock at $225 a share with Huang gone, against $300 with him in charge, according to CBS News.[6] Others think the products matter more than the founder. "Customers buy Nvidia's computing power, software and networking ecosystem, and those advantages wouldn't disappear with its CEO," Swissquote's Ipek Ozkardeskaya told CBS News.[6]
The first big test is close. Nvidia said it will still report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, at about 1:20 p.m. Pacific time, with the earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific.[1] Kress is already a familiar face on those calls: eToro analyst Josh Gilbert told the BBC she "fronts every earnings call" alongside Huang.[5] For the wider AI trade, see our report on CoreWeave's third-quarter results.
Who could be the next permanent CEO
Nvidia has not named any candidates. Analysts and reporters have floated several names, and the BBC and The Verge list overlapping ones:[4][5]
- Colette Kress, the interim chief. eToro's Gilbert told the BBC she is a "familiar and trusted voice for the market", but said a company built on engineering may want an engineer in the job for the long term.[5]
- Ian Buck, who runs Nvidia's high-performance computing business and helped popularise using graphics chips beyond gaming.[4][5]
- Chris Malachowsky, who founded Nvidia with Huang and Curtis Priem.[5]
- Rene Haas, chief executive of Arm Holdings, suggested by Saxo's Charu Chanana and Ten Cap's Jun Bei Liu, who also mentioned Apple chair Tim Cook.[4][5]
Trump backs Tim Cook. A couple of hours after the announcement, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: "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!"[9][10] Cook handed over the Apple CEO job earlier this year and is now Apple's executive chairman.[9][10] Trump did not say whether Cook wants the role, and neither Cook nor Nvidia had publicly answered by the time of this update. A president has no formal say in the choice: Nvidia's board, now led by chair Harvey C. Jones, runs the search.[9]
Rasgon was blunt about the size of the gap. "Jensen is Nvidia, right? He is the visionary," he told CNBC, adding that he did not "intuitively know" who should make the next decade's decisions.[3]
Huang agrees to testify to Congress
Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters on Thursday that Huang has agreed to testify before Congress before Thanksgiving, which is November 26.[11][12][13] Engadget, citing Bloomberg, reports that Mast said Huang agreed on Wednesday, hours before the resignation, after lawmakers raised the threat of a subpoena. The session is expected to be behind closed doors but filmed and transcribed, with the House intelligence and China committees joining.[13]
"Jensen and I have been very at odds as some of you already know on export controls, but NVIDIA is a very important company to the United States of America," Mast said. "I don't want to see anything hurt in NVIDIA, but he has some very serious questions to answer."[13]
In Singapore, the Ministry of Home Affairs said on Thursday that Alice Huang, the Megaspeed executive at the centre of the case (no relation to Jensen Huang), has been barred from re-entering the country, but that police found insufficient evidence that she had committed offences linked to the declarations under investigation. The investigation into Megaspeed and six other people continues, and Megaspeed has said it will cooperate with the US inquiry.[13][14]
Senate Banking Committee asks Huang and Lutnick to testify (November 13)
The pressure moved to the Senate on Thursday night. Senator Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, sent letters asking Huang to appear voluntarily on December 3.[17][18][19][20] "Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive U.S. technology," Scott said. "The American people deserve answers."[17][18]
If either man declines, Scott wrote, the committee is "prepared to use all tools at our disposal, including subpoenas".[17][18] The letters centre on export controls and how they were applied to Nvidia's advanced chips.[17][19]
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick got a letter too. NBC News and Politico (cited by DW) say his date is December 10, while Fortune and Al Jazeera describe a single hearing on December 3.[19][20][17][18] A Lutnick spokesperson told NBC News that he "has proactively agreed to appear voluntarily before the Banking Committee", which DW also reported.[19][20] Huang's representatives did not immediately respond to NBC News.[19] This Senate request is separate from the House testimony Mast described above.[18][20] Democrats are pressing too: Senator Richard Blumenthal has raised concerns publicly, and told reporters one thing he wants to know is, "Were export controls relaxed?"[18][19]
What happens next
| When | What to watch |
|---|---|
| Now | Kress runs Nvidia as interim CEO and CFO; Jones chairs the board[1] |
| Tuesday, November 17 | Third-quarter results and earnings call, the first under the interim team[1] |
| Before Thanksgiving (Nov 26) | Huang testifies to House committees, expected behind closed doors[12][13] |
| December 3 | Huang asked to testify in public to the Senate Banking Committee[17][18][19] |
| December 10 | Lutnick before the Senate Banking Committee, per NBC News and Politico[19][20] |
| Not yet dated | Board search for a permanent CEO, internal and external[1][2] |
| Not yet dated | Findings of the board's independent investigation, which began on November 8 (see our earlier article) |
Frequently asked questions
Did Jensen Huang resign or was he fired?
Nvidia's statement says he resigned, effective immediately. Reports on Wednesday night said the board was preparing to remove him, and The Verge says the board accepted his resignation letter after meeting late that night.[1][2][4]
Who is Nvidia's CEO now?
Colette Kress, the chief financial officer, is interim CEO and keeps her CFO role until a permanent CEO is appointed.[1][2]
Who is Harvey C. Jones?
A technology executive and venture investor who was CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys. He is now the first chair of Nvidia's board.[1][3]
Is Nvidia still reporting earnings on November 17?
Yes. The company says results are due on Tuesday, November 17, at about 1:20 p.m. PT, as scheduled.[1]
How much did Nvidia stock fall?
It opened at $151.01 on November 12, about 13% below the previous close of $173.73, and well below the $186.64 close on Friday, November 6. It then recovered to close at $166.19, down 4.34% on the day.[7][15][16]
References
- "NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition". NVIDIA Newsroom. November 12, 2026. nvidianews.nvidia.com
- "Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns, board announces". CBS News. November 12, 2026. cbsnews.com
- "Nvidia stock falls 12% as CEO Jensen Huang announces resignation". CNBC. November 12, 2026. cnbc.com
- Field, Hayden. "Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns amid spy, affair scandals". The Verge. November 12, 2026. theverge.com
- "Who could replace Jensen Huang as Nvidia's chief executive?". BBC News. November 12, 2026. bbc.co.uk
- "Nvidia set to lose $700 billion in value as Jensen Huang resigns". CBS News. November 12, 2026. cbsnews.com
- NVDA, Nasdaq Composite quote and chart data, checked 14:30 to 14:33 GMT November 12, 2026. Yahoo Finance and CNBC. finance.yahoo.com
- "Buy, Sell, or Hold? Thursday's Top Upgrades and Downgrades". 24/7 Wall St. November 12, 2026. 247wallst.com
- "Trump says 'there is only one man' to replace Jensen Huang as Nvidia CEO". Fox Business. November 12, 2026. foxbusiness.com
- "Trump Says 'Only One Man' Can Replace Jensen Huang". Business Insider. November 12, 2026. businessinsider.com
- "Jensen Huang agrees to testify before Congress". TechCrunch. November 12, 2026. techcrunch.com
- "Nvidia's Jensen Huang to testify to US Congress amid scandal, reports say". The Guardian (live). November 12, 2026. theguardian.com
- "Ex-NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is set to testify before Congress this month". Engadget. November 12, 2026. engadget.com
- "Singapore Says Warns Alice Huang, Lacks Evidence of Offenses". Bloomberg. November 12, 2026. bloomberg.com
- NVDA and Nasdaq Composite closing quotes, November 12, 2026 (4:00 p.m. ET). CNBC. cnbc.com
- NVDA daily chart data, November 2026. Yahoo Finance. finance.yahoo.com
- "Senate Banking Committee asks Jensen Huang and Howard Lutnick to testify over 'significant national security concerns' next month, or face subpoenas". Fortune. November 13, 2026. fortune.com
- "US Senate summons Nvidia's Huang, Lutnick to testify". Al Jazeera (with AP). November 13, 2026. aljazeera.com
- "Howard Lutnick agrees to testify as bipartisan pressure grows over Nvidia scandal". NBC News. November 12, 2026. nbcnews.com
- "US Senate asks Huang, Lutnick to testify on Nvidia". DW (with Reuters, AFP). November 13, 2026. dw.com