Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO, Kress interim

TLDR: Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia’s president, chief executive and board member on Thursday, effective immediately, ending 33 years in charge of the company he co-founded. It enables Nvidia to replace its founder in the middle of a federal export investigation without an interval in which he stays in the job. The difference between this and a planned succession is that Colette Kress, the chief financial officer since 2013, takes over as interim rather than a named successor, and the board has not said why.

Caption: The release, published November 12, 2026. Three subheads carry the whole announcement: he resigns, the finance chief becomes interim, and the board gets its first-ever chair. Screenshot: NVIDIA Newsroom.

What the company said

The release is short, and the first paragraph is the entire news:

“The NVIDIA Board of Directors announced today that Jensen Huang has resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board, effective immediately.”

Colette Kress is interim chief executive while continuing as executive vice president and chief financial officer. She joined Nvidia in September 2013, after close to 25 years in finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft.

The board has started a search for a permanent chief executive and says it will consider internal and external candidates, which is the standard phrasing for a search that has not settled on anyone.

Harvey C. Jones becomes the board’s first-ever chair. He has been a technology executive and venture investor for more than 30 years and was chief executive and then executive chairman of Synopsys.

Jones’s quote is about continuity: “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.”

Kress’s quote thanks the founder: “I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years.”

Nvidia says its third-quarter results will still be reported on Tuesday, November 17, as scheduled.

What the release does not say

Six things are missing, and each one matters:

No reason. The resignation is not explained. There is no reference to the affairs, to the intelligence allegations, or to the investigation.
No finding. The independent investigation announced on November 10, led by Wachtell and the former prosecutor Joon H. Kim, has published nothing. The board’s earlier position, that it had no reason to believe secrets were compromised, has not been updated.
No terms. Resignation rather than termination, with no statement about severance, equity or a consulting arrangement.
No successor. An interim from the finance side is a caretaker, not a plan.
No statement from Huang. He does not appear in the release at all.
No explanation of the board’s reversal. On Sunday the board expressed confidence in him. On Wednesday it met to decide whether to remove him. On Thursday he was gone, and the documents in between explain none of it.

How it got here, in order

November 8: the board opens an independent investigation after reporting that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. It says it has no reason to believe secrets were compromised and expresses confidence in him.
November 9: a securities class action is filed in the Northern District of California.
November 11: the Wall Street Journal reports the board is preparing to remove him and weighing an interim chief. CBS reports two sources saying it is expected soon. The board meets that night.
November 12: he resigns, effective immediately.

*Caption: CNBC’s account from Thursday morning, before the release: the board met overnight, no outcome announced. Screenshot: CNBC.*

The market, before the announcement

Shares closed at $173.73 on Wednesday, then fell to $159.75 after hours, down 8.05%, when the Journal’s report landed. They were down around 5% more in premarket trading on Thursday.

*Caption: The after-hours move that priced in a departure before the company confirmed one. Screenshot: CNBC.*

What it means for everyone downstream

Nvidia’s pricing power, its allocation decisions and its supply agreements have all been built around one person’s judgment for three decades. Every rig builder waiting on a GPU allocation, and every cloud that signed a multi-year capacity deal, has been underwriting that continuity.

The release insists operations continue without interruption. The test of that claim arrives on Tuesday, when Kress takes the earnings call as interim chief executive, five days after the founder left.

*Caption: The CBS report with two sources that first put a timeframe on the board’s intentions. Screenshot: CBS News.*

*Caption: Reuters, noting on Thursday that Nvidia had not responded to a request for comment on the meeting. Screenshot: Euronext, Reuters copy.*

What to watch

The 8-K. A chief executive departure requires a filing within four business days. That filing will carry the terms, and possibly more of the story, than the press release does.
November 17. The earnings call is now a leadership event, not a numbers event. Guidance on allocation matters more than the quarter.
The investigation. Wachtell and Joon H. Kim have not reported. Their findings, whenever they land, will decide whether this reads as a company protecting itself or one burying a problem.
Whether the search stays internal. An external hire signals the board believes the culture needs more than a caretaker.

*Caption: The newsroom index, where the transition release now sits at the top, above the two statements from earlier in the week. Screenshot: NVIDIA Newsroom.*

The plain summary: the founder is gone, the finance chief is in the chair, a Synopsys veteran is chairing the board, and nobody at Nvidia has said why. The company that spent thirty years being one man’s judgment call is now a search process with a stock price.