Jensen Huang is no longer Nvidia’s boss. The co-founder stepped down on 12 November 2026 as president and chief executive and left the board of directors, effective immediately, and chief financial officer Colette Kress is serving as interim chief. For companies that depend on the group’s chips for their artificial intelligence projects, the issue is not the personal saga but continuity: roadmap, deliveries, export policy and the governance of an all but unavoidable supplier.
What Nvidia officially says
The statement filed with the US securities regulator runs to just a few lines. Jensen Huang is relinquishing his roles as president, chief executive and director. No reason is given; the board merely praises his contribution to the company and the industry. Colette Kress, who joined Nvidia in September 2013 after nearly twenty-five years in finance at technology groups including Cisco and Microsoft, combines the interim role with her position as chief financial officer.
Two other decisions accompany the departure. The board is launching a search for a permanent chief executive and will consider both internal and external candidates. And, for the first time in its history, Nvidia is appointing a chair of the board: Harvey C. Jones, a former executive of software company Synopsys. He says he has “full confidence” in Colette Kress and the leadership team, and the statement says Nvidia expects its business, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption. The release of results for the third quarter of fiscal 2027 remains scheduled for Tuesday 17 November.
A week that tipped the board
The statement is silent on the reasons, but the US press has pieced together the sequence of events. According to Decrypt, the New York Times reported on 29 October that US officials regarded Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer, as a source for Chinese intelligence; Beijing denies this. On 8 November, Jensen Huang acknowledged in a letter to staff that he had been unfaithful to his wife, and the board opened an independent investigation.
According to Fortune, the board said at the time that it had no reason to believe that national security or Nvidia’s secrets had been compromised. On 11 November, new revelations reported by the New York Times pointed to a relationship with Kimberly Powell, vice-president for healthcare and a direct report. The Wall Street Journal then reported that the board was preparing to remove him. Decrypt also mentions a planned shareholder class action and the threat of a subpoena raised by US lawmakers.
For customers, continuity is promised, not guaranteed
The main risk for companies lies in the way Nvidia was run. Fortune notes that Jensen Huang had held the post for 33 years, without a chief operating officer, with some sixty executives reporting directly to him, and that he said he was not keen on conventional succession plans. According to estimates cited by Fortune, the group reportedly controls around 90% of the market for high-performance graphics processors used in AI data centres. In other words, almost all large-scale AI projects depend on a company that must now urgently reorganise its leadership.
In the short term, no source reports any change in deliveries or contracts, and the statement stresses continuity. In the medium term, three issues deserve to be followed by IT and procurement departments:
- China policy: according to Al Jazeera, Jensen Huang campaigned against restrictions on sales to China, and Chinese companies are said to have ordered more than two million H200 chips; the line the future chief executive will take on this issue remains unknown;
- pending acquisitions: Al Jazeera notes that Clément Delangue, head of Hugging Face, which Nvidia has agreed to acquire, reaffirmed his commitment to open AI after Jensen Huang’s resignation;
- the choice of successor: names cited by Reuters and picked up by Al Jazeera include Colette Kress, Ian Buck, an Nvidia vice-president who joined the group in 2004, and Rene Haas, head of Arm and a former Nvidia executive.
A stock market penalty, then a partial rebound
Markets reacted sharply. Fortune had already noted a drop of more than 4% on 9 November, the day after the first admissions. On the day of the announcement, the shares fell by more than 14% at one point during the session according to Al Jazeera, before recovering some ground; Decrypt reports a low of $148.80. Jensen Huang remains the largest individual shareholder, with around 3.6% of the capital, but, Fortune points out, he does not hold multiple-voting shares, unlike Mark Zuckerberg at Meta.
For a client company, the lesson is above all structural: dependence on a single supplier also carries a governance risk. Diversifying computing sources, across several cloud providers, competing chips or European offerings, remains the only way to avoid being exposed to the internal upheavals of such a central player. The 17 November earnings call will give a first indication of the new leadership’s direction.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Jensen Huang leave Nvidia?
Nvidia has given no official reason. The departure follows revelations about personal relationships, one of them with an executive suspected by Washington of links to Chinese intelligence and another with a vice-president who reported to him, according to the US press.
Who runs Nvidia now?
Colette Kress, chief financial officer since 2013, is serving as interim chief while keeping her finance duties. Harvey C. Jones becomes the first chair of the board in the group’s history, and the board is searching for a permanent chief executive.
Are chip deliveries to companies under threat?
Nothing suggests so at this stage: the board says the roadmap and customer commitments are being maintained. The uncertainty concerns rather future strategic direction, particularly exports to China.
Sources
- NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition (8-K) — Nvidia / SEC, 2026-11-12
- Why did Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resign, and who is Colette Kress? — Al Jazeera, 2026-11-12
- Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO, With CFO Colette Kress Named Interim Chief — Decrypt, 2026-11-12
- Nvidia's power built around Jensen Huang: a scandal tests the formula — Fortune, 2026-11-09