Jensen Huang Resigns: NVIDIA Names Colette Kress Interim CEO

Jensen Huang has resigned as NVIDIA's president, chief executive officer and board member, effective immediately. The board announced the decision on Thursday, November 12, 2026, ending the 33-year run of the co-founder who turned a graphics-chip company into the central supplier of the AI boom.

Chief financial officer Colette Kress takes over as interim CEO while keeping her finance job, and the board has started a search for a permanent successor. NVIDIA says its product roadmap, customer commitments and November 17 earnings date are unchanged. The market's first reaction was a sharp sell-off followed by a partial recovery: shares fell as much as 14 percent in early trading on November 12 before closing down 4.34 percent at $166.19.

How the week unfolded

The resignation arrived at the end of a fast-moving week. The sequence below is drawn from NVIDIA's own filings and the reporting that followed them.

The Wall Street Journal reported on November 11 that directors were preparing to remove Huang, according to USA Today. The next morning, the company announced his resignation instead.

Who is Colette Kress?

Kress, 59, has been NVIDIA's executive vice president and chief financial officer since September 2013, according to the company's SEC filing. She will continue in the CFO role while serving as interim CEO, which means the person running the company day to day is also the person who has managed its money through the entire AI boom.

Before NVIDIA, she spent three years as a senior vice president and CFO of Cisco's Business Technology Operations Finance organization, and 13 years at Microsoft, including four years as CFO of the Server and Tools division. She holds a finance degree from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. Forbes estimates her net worth at about $1.2 billion, according to TechCrunch.

Kress is a familiar figure to the analysts who cover NVIDIA, having been a regular presence on its earnings calls for more than a decade. In the company's statement she said: "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. We will continue advancing the work that has made Nvidia a leader in accelerated computing and AI, and execute on the opportunities ahead. Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders."

Harvey C. Jones, 73, a director since 1993 and a former Synopsys chief, becomes the board's first-ever chair. The board said it will consider internal and external candidates for the permanent CEO job, and it has given no timetable for the search. Analyst Dan Ives expects the interim period to last about a year, according to FinanceChecks.

What NVIDIA said, and what it did not say

NVIDIA's announcement is short and gives no reason for the resignation. It contains no quote from Huang and no mention of the board investigation announced on November 8. The full text of the release is attached as Exhibit 99.1 to the Form 8-K the company filed with the SEC, and it covers four points: the resignation, Kress's interim appointment, Jones's appointment as chair, and the unchanged November 17 earnings date.

What the company did say, through its new board chair, is that operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap will continue without interruption, according to Reuters. That is the sentence that matters most to the AI industry. NVIDIA designs the chips that make the AI boom possible, in TechCrunch's words, so a leadership vacuum at the company raises a question no other chipmaker can raise: whether the roadmap behind the world's AI infrastructure keeps moving at the same speed.

So far the answer from the company is that nothing changes. No product delay, no guidance revision and no change to the earnings schedule accompanied the announcement. The first real test of that claim comes on November 17, when Kress fronts her first earnings call as interim CEO.

How the stock reacted

The market moved first and asked questions later. Shares dipped below $150 in premarket trading, opened about 13 percent lower on November 12, and fell as much as 14 percent at the start of the session before buyers stepped in. The stock closed at $166.19, down 4.34 percent on the day, after closing at $173.73 the day before. In after-hours trading it edged up to $167.82, and it rose 2.3 percent in premarket trading on November 13.

Currency conversions use November 15, 2026 market rates of 1 USD = 0.7561 GBP and 1.4258 CAD, and are approximations.

The wider damage is larger than one day's close. Reuters estimated the shares had lost about $300 billion in market value (about £226.8 billion or CA$427.7 billion) since the board announced its investigation on Sunday, November 8. The Associated Press reported the stock had already fallen 27 percent from its October record high above $243 through November 11, and FinanceChecks put the November decline at more than 20 percent. Reuters also reported, citing LSEG data, that the stock traded at about 12 times forward earnings estimates for the next twelve months, its lowest valuation since November 2012.

Rival chipmakers moved the other way on Thursday: Broadcom and AMD rose, according to the Associated Press, as investors treated the turmoil as an opening for competitors. That rally may not last. The same reporting noted that Micron, Marvell and Intel fell, and analysts quoted in the coverage called the rival rally fragile. NVIDIA is still worth about $3.8 trillion, according to TechCrunch, and it remains the company the rest of the AI industry is built around.

What it means for AI

The practical question is whether a change at the top changes what NVIDIA ships. The company's own position is that it does not: the roadmap continues, the earnings date stands, and the interim chief is the executive who has run its finances since 2013. The product machine has kept moving through the week, and the company's desktop AI system, the NVIDIA DGX Spark 64GB, went on sale at $4,999 only weeks ago.

But the transition does touch the wider AI ecosystem in a way a normal CEO change would not. Reuters noted that NVIDIA has reinvested its growing cash reserves in cloud-service providers, suppliers and major AI labs, so the company is now a financier of the AI buildout as well as its main hardware supplier. A leadership search at the center of that web is a story for customers and partners, not just shareholders, and the November 17 earnings call is the first place they will hear how the new leadership talks about the business.

There is also a governance lesson in the way this happened. Huang, 63, owned about 3.6 percent of NVIDIA's stock, according to USA Today, and had never established a succession plan, according to TechCrunch. A founder-led company with no named successor is exposed the moment the founder leaves, and NVIDIA is now learning that in public. Whoever takes the permanent job inherits not just a chip roadmap but a network of investments, partnerships and export-control questions that only the founder used to manage.

None of that changes the demand picture by itself. The AI infrastructure buildout continues on other fronts, including AWS's free local emulator for developers and coding agents, and the customers buying NVIDIA's chips are the same companies that were buying them a week ago. The open question is execution and confidence, and both get their first public test on November 17.

What is not established

Care is needed with the reporting around this resignation, because the confirmed facts and the allegations are not the same thing. The resignation itself is confirmed: the board accepted it on November 11 and the company announced it on November 12. The reasons behind it are not part of the company's announcement, and the release offers none.

USA Today reported that the resignation followed scrutiny over allegations involving Huang's personal relationships, including a relationship with a Singapore-based tech executive whom US intelligence officials suspect of spying for China, and a relationship with a company vice president. The Associated Press said it could not independently confirm the reported relationships, and the allegations have not been established as findings of wrongdoing. A resignation does not establish a security breach, an export-control violation or a completed finding about workplace conduct, and no such finding has been published.

Readers should treat the personal allegations as reported claims, not as established facts, and judge the story on what is documented: a board decision, an interim appointment, a leadership search, a stock reaction and an earnings date that has not moved.

What to watch next

Five dates and decisions will show whether this transition is a brief disruption or a longer problem. First, the November 17 earnings report and call, where Kress speaks as interim CEO for the first time and analysts will press her on guidance and the roadmap. Second, the company meeting Kress has announced for November 18. Third, the CEO search itself: whether the board picks an insider who knows the roadmap or an outsider who brings a fresh mandate, and how long the search takes.

Fourth, the stock: whether the November 13 premarket rebound holds or fades once earnings land. And fifth, the customers. NVIDIA's biggest buyers are cloud providers and AI labs with multi-year purchasing plans, and any sign that they are slowing orders or shifting volume to rivals would matter more than a week of share-price movement. None of those signals has appeared yet, and the company's position is that the roadmap continues without interruption.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Jensen Huang resign as NVIDIA CEO?

NVIDIA's announcement gives no reason for the resignation. The board accepted it on November 11, 2026 and announced it publicly on November 12. Reporting by USA Today links the exit to scrutiny over Huang's personal relationships and a board investigation announced on November 8, but the company itself has not stated a reason.

Who is NVIDIA's interim CEO?

Colette Kress, NVIDIA's executive vice president and chief financial officer since September 2013. She keeps the CFO role while serving as interim CEO, and the board is searching for a permanent successor from internal and external candidates. Harvey C. Jones, a director since 1993, is the board's first-ever chair.

Did NVIDIA's stock fall after the resignation?

Yes. Shares fell as much as 14 percent at the open on November 12, 2026, dipped below $150 in premarket trading, and closed at $166.19, down 4.34 percent. They rose 2.3 percent in premarket trading on November 13. Reuters estimated about $300 billion in market value had been lost since the board announced its investigation on November 8.

When does NVIDIA report earnings?

NVIDIA reports third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, 2026, at about 1:20 p.m. PT, followed by an earnings call at 2 p.m. PT. The date was set before the leadership change and has not moved. The fiscal quarter ended October 25, 2026.

Does the CEO change affect NVIDIA's AI chips or roadmap?

Nothing announced so far suggests it does. The board chair said operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap will continue without interruption, and no product delay or guidance change accompanied the announcement. The November 17 earnings call is the first public test of that position.

Sources

• NVIDIA Corporation, Form 8-K with press release "NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition" as Exhibit 99.1, November 12, 2026 (SEC filing)
• TechCrunch, "Jensen Huang is out at Nvidia — who is Colette Kress, his interim replacement?", November 12, 2026
• The Indian Express, "Nvidia chief Jensen Huang resigns, CFO Colette Kress named interim CEO", November 13, 2026
• USA Today, "Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO amid affair probe", November 12, 2026
• The Manila Times, "NVIDIA names Colette Kress interim CEO after Jensen Huang resigns", November 13, 2026
• EL7, "Nvidia shares fall 14% at the open after Huang resigns", November 12, 2026 (Associated Press and Reuters reporting)
• EL7, "NVIDIA rises 2.3% premarket after weekly loss", November 13, 2026 (Reuters reporting via Investing.com)
• FXLeaders, "Positive Signals as NVDA Stock Rebounds Above $165", November 12, 2026

This article reports on a public company announcement and market movements. It is general information, not financial advice.