NEW YORK, November 13, 2026 – Not just the CEO of Nvidia for the past three decades but an iconic image of the company itself—of its leather-clad evangelist who could conjure up engines of the modern economy from silicon wafers. Then came the Thursday announcement by means of a short and simple corporate communication to mark the end of this era.
That was it. Gone. At 63, Jensen Huang tendered his immediate resignation as president, CEO, and board member of Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips for artificial intelligence applications.
Why does a sudden corner-office exit in Santa Clara send shockwaves from Wall Street trading desks to sovereign data centers worldwide? Nvidia isn’t just a semiconductor vendor now; it’s the very backbone for the construction of the world’s AI systems, and Huang has been the CEO ever since he co-founded the company way back in 1993. When the mastermind behind a $4 trillion economy leaves the company without an obvious successor, no one is kidding themselves into believing that everything is business as usual.
The market responded quickly and harshly. The stock price of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) dropped more than 12% in Thursday morning trading due to the early-session decline that put about $500 billion in market capitalization in jeopardy, but pared its losses to end up down 4.34% to $166.19.
To ensure that operations continue as directors look for a new permanent CEO, Nvidia’s board appointed longtime EVP and CFO Colette Kress as the interim CEO. Kress will continue to act as the CFO while the process is underway, with the board stating that both internal and external candidates will be considered. In addition, the company appointed seasoned technology leader and board member Harvey C. Jones as the first-ever Chair of the Board, marking a major restructuring in corporate governance at Nvidia.
In its official communique, the Nvidia board eschewed discussing any personal complications around Huang’s resignation and rather focused on his “profound” and “immeasurable contributions” to both Nvidia and the wider tech industry. In reality, however, the departure came after weeks of increasing pressure from inside the boardroom over claims that there were extramarital affairs between company employees and Alice Huang, a businesswoman whom the U.S. suspects is a spy working for Beijing. Beijing has denied those claims, and Nvidia’s independent directors, who hired outside lawyers to conduct an inquiry earlier this week, said that the company had no reason to think that there was a national security issue.
“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,” Kress said in Thursday’s announcement.
If Kress seems strikingly calm for someone given the reins of a $4 trillion behemoth in the middle of a crisis, her CV makes it clear why. Appointed in September 2013, Kress had almost 25 years of senior-level experience in finance in large enterprise technology firms such as Cisco and Microsoft before she took on the role of the number-focused voice familiar to investors from quarterly conference calls. However, Wall Street analysts are still not sure if the career finance head will be able to create the product visionary magic that made Huang dare to bet his company on accelerating computing 10 years before generative AI entered common parlance.
Harvey Jones, a board member at Nvidia since 1993, with more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur, technology executive, and venture capitalist, including being CEO and executive chairman of electronic design automation pioneer Synopsys, sounded reassuring about the continuity. He noted that Kress has been guiding Nvidia through an unprecedented period of growth and has a detailed understanding of its operations, customers, and finance strategy.
Even so, the timing couldn’t be trickier. The company will release its third-quarter fiscal 2027 financial results on Tuesday, November 17, at 1:20 p.m. Pacific Time, and then hold an earnings call at 2 p.m. PT. The earnings call will be Kress’s first as CEO, the first in more than three decades that investors will listen to an update on Nvidia’s roadmap without Huang on the phone.
Nobody in Santa Clara pretends that the transition is going to be smooth, but there are still many uncertainties surrounding the search process and even the possibility that some of the company’s engineering vice presidents may jump ship. But amidst all the excitement of the executive office, the demand backlog that Nvidia has built up has not suddenly evaporated. Thirty-three years after founding his graphics chip startup in a roadside restaurant, Jensen Huang has stepped down from the stage to let Colette Kress show that his machine can keep running without him.
