Dive Brief:
- Nvidia announced Thursday that CEO and Founder Jensen Huang has resigned, effective immediately, from his roles as CEO, president and board member.
- The chip-maker named long-time CFO Colette Kress to step in as interim CEO and initiated a search to find a permanent successor to Huang.
- Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy led to questions about a potential successor and whether the chip-maker’s CFO could fit the bill, at least on a temporary basis, CFO Dive reported earlier this week.
Dive Insight:
The shocking fall from grace of one of the AI boom’s executive titans rattled investors and pushed Nvidia shares down as much as 14% before they retraced some of their losses in afternoon trading.
The Santa Clara, California-based leadership shake-up also marked a reversal from the company’s previous stance. Over the weekend, Nvidia backed Huang despite his acknowledgment of his relationship with a Chinese business executive. U.S. intelligence agencies have determined the woman was a spy for the Chinese government, though China has rejected the claims, according to The New York Times.
Nvidia’s board expressed “confidence in Jensen and his leadership team” on Sunday, even as the company launched an independent investigation “in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.”
A shift in the company’s view on the matter emerged Wednesday. Shortly after The New York Times reported Huang also had an extra-marital affair with a Nvidia executive who heads the company’s healthcare business, the “board met to determine Jensen Huang’s future,” The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nvidia did not immediately respond to CFO Dive’s request for comment. On Thursday morning, the company reported Huang had resigned.
The board’s hand was effectively forced to act and ask for Huang’s resignation after the reports on the affair with an employee came to light, because consorting with subordinates is a much more clearly defined problem than an affair with someone who is outside the company — even if that person is suspected of being a spy, according to Charles Elson, a retired founding director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.
“They had to lose trust in him once they learned of the internal affair,” Elson told CFO Dive in an interview. While the company said Huang resigned, Elson questions whether Huang may have been asked to resign, or been terminated on the basis of the alleged relationship with the Nvidia executive. “Organizations have very clear rules on internal consorting with employees.”
The scandal has highlighted the governance concern about “key-man risk” at Nvidia which is the phenomenon where well-known figures in a business are viewed by some to be irreplaceable. Their delay in taking action was not ideal, Elson said, asserting that the best governance practice would have been for Nvidia to announce that they were putting Huang on administrative leave when they announced the probe into the foreign intelligence matter.
The reshuffling also catapults the chip-maker’s long-time CFO Colette Kress to the top of one of the world’s largest companies, which has a market cap of $4 trillion as of Thursday afternoon.
After the board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday, it named Kress, 59, as interim CEO, noting that she will also continue serving in the EVP and CFO roles she has held since joining the company in 2013, according to a Thursday securities filing.
The filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission did not detail any change in Colette’s pay related to her additional responsibilities. In the fiscal year ended Jan. 25, 2026, Kress’s compensation totaled $14.34 million, compared to Huang’s $36.3 million, according to a May 12 proxy filing. Nvidia’s proxy and Thursday filing both refer to Huang’s first name as Jen-Hsun, rather than the Americanized Jensen.
Before the appointment, Shawn Cole, president of executive search firm Cowen Partners, told CFO Dive that he thought naming Kress as interim CEO or Co-CEO would be a good way for the company to stabilize the business. On Thursday he said he thought Kress could ultimately be a permanent CEO, but he was not certain as she will have to overcome certain factors.
For one, she will need to show she wasn’t aware of Huang’s affairs, which could taint her if she didn’t address them, he said.
Another issue is that the company may feel pressure to tap another big “rock-star” type personality to fill its top role, Cole said.
A number of names have been bandied about already. On Thursday, Reuters reported President Donald Trump said former Apple CEO Tim Cook should replace Huang. Meanwhile prediction markets are naming Rene Haas, a former Nvidia VP and current CEO of Arm, as well as Ian Buck, head of Nvidia’s AI, as potential replacements in the running along with Kress, according to an emailed note from Morningstar Senior Equity Analyst Brian Colello.
“We find Haas as a compelling external candidate that could guide the Nvidia ship,” Colello’s Thursday note states. “Kress is a reasonable interim CEO candidate who could provide continuity during a leadership transition.”
But Kress’ experience in the company and broad view of the business that isn’t “siloed” could make her a good permanent leader, and Cole rejects those that would dismiss her outright for the job.
“I think she’s certainly a viable candidate,” Cole said. “At its core it’s a manufacturing business. They’re dealing with supply and demand issues. When you’re a CEO you’re no longer designing chips and that’s part of the problem with [Huang] remaining CEO for so long.”
Harvey C. Jones, a tech executive who was named the company’s “first-ever” board chair Thursday, expressed the board’s “full confidence” in Kress and the company’s leadership, saying in a statement that the board expects the company’s operations to continue uninterrupted.
“Colette has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position,” Jones said in the statement included in the Thursday press release. “She is supported by an experienced leadership team that has been instrumental in executing NVIDIA’s strategy and advancing its technology roadmap. 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.”
What is clear about the interim period is that Kress will have her hands full. She will also be doing her regular CFO job as well. Indeed it was Kress who signed the company’s SEC filing Thursday that detailed the resignation, and she will likely be leading Nvidia’s next earnings call on Tuesday.
Editor’s note: Alexei Alexis contributed reporting to this story. The article has been updated with comments from an analyst and governance and executive search experts.
