Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO after spy and affair reports
CFO Colette Kress named interim CEO
Confirmed
Importance: historic (5 of 5)The takeaway
CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO and ex-Synopsys CEO Harvey C. Jones became Nvidia’s first board chair; Nvidia fell about 14% at the open.
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- Historic (5 of 5)
- Last verified
- 13 November 2026
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Key facts
- Nvidia release (Nov 12): Huang resigned as president, CEO and director ‘effective immediately’; Colette Kress (CFO since 2013) is interim CEO and keeps the CFO role; Harvey C. Jones appointed the company’s first-ever chair; the board will consider internal and external CEO candidates; Q3 FY2027 results stay on Nov 17. The release contains no quote from Huang
- Per TechCrunch, an SEC filing says the board accepted the resignation on Wednesday, Nov 11
- Nov 11, WSJ: the board was preparing to oust Huang after ‘two extramarital affairs’; Nvidia fell 9%+ after hours. Bloomberg: the board was working with an outside firm on replacements and weighed a temporary CEO
- Nov 11, NYT: Huang also had a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s VP of healthcare, who reports to him; the paper says it was discussed inside Nvidia. Neither Nvidia, Huang nor Powell confirmed it (TechCrunch)
- Market (Bloomberg headline, Nov 12): Nvidia dropped 14% at Thursday’s open, erasing $600B+ and taking its market value below $4T for the first time since 2025; AMD and Broadcom rose (FT)
- Congress: House Foreign Affairs chair Brian Mast said on Nov 12 that Huang agreed on Nov 11 to a closed-door, recorded and transcribed briefing ‘by Thanksgiving’, after lawmakers threatened a subpoena; ‘he has some very serious questions to answer’ (TechCrunch, citing Bloomberg and NBC)
- Trump (Truth Social, Nov 12): Huang ‘has done a fantastic job’; ‘there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!’
- Musk replied ‘That would be an honor’ (8.5M views) to ZeroHedge’s ‘Elon please hire Jensen’ (4.5M views) on Nov 12
Show 6 more
- Candidates in press lists (Semafor, Bloomberg, Nov 12): Apple hardware chief Johny Srouji (Semafor: being considered), CUDA creator Ian Buck, Arm CEO Rene Haas
- Interim CEO’s staff email (Nov 12, The Verge; shared on X by Miranda Nazzaro, 538k views): Colette Kress cites ‘an extraordinarily difficult period’ and promises ‘more from leadership’; an all-hands is set for about a week later, which commentators criticised as slow. The Information: Kress had pushed back on riskier deals such as backstopping OpenAI
- Follow-ups (Nov 12-13, headlines): Reuters: Huang had an intimate relationship with a second employee; Bloomberg: before his exit Nvidia faced pressure to raise its 25% residual-value backstop on a planned $500B AI financing vehicle with asset managers; FT: Nvidia’s web of investments in startups, suppliers and customers could unravel; Wired: Nvidia employees petition for Huang’s return (Hacker News #1, 642 points)
- Open source: TechCrunch asked whether Nvidia’s support for open models survives Huang; Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue vowed to keep fighting for open-source AI
- Politics after the exit: Senate Banking chair Tim Scott asked Huang to testify on Dec 3 and Lutnick on Dec 10; DOJ has not concluded whether Alice Huang was a spy; Trump had urged Huang to keep fighting (see Senate Banking chair Tim Scott calls Jensen Huang (Dec 3) and Howard Lutnick (Dec 10) to testify on Nvidia and China; Democrats open their own probe). The same evening Will DePue’s weight forensics indicated six Chinese open models were started on Blackwell GPUs (Weight forensics: ex-OpenAI researcher Will DePue finds six Chinese open models were started on export-controlled Nvidia Blackwell GPUs)
- Related reporting (headlines, Nov 11-12): firms tied to Alice Huang recently invested in DeepSeek, promising Blackwell chips (The Information); a PLA-linked university bought H200 access despite a blacklist (Reuters); Commerce Secretary Lutnick stalled curbs on chip-diversion suspects and the White House discussed his future (Axios, Reuters); several DOJ probes may sweep up Nvidia (Semafor); Chinese AI firms rushed to rent Nvidia cloud capacity abroad (Reuters)
What happened
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and ran it for 33 years, taking it from a graphics-chip maker to the main supplier of AI compute. On Nov 8 he admitted an affair in a letter to staff, and the board opened an independent probe into reports that he was the target of a Chinese intelligence effort run through Megaspeed executive Alice Huang. On Nov 9 and 10 the board still said it had confidence in him. On Nov 11 the WSJ reported that the board was preparing to remove him, and the NYT reported a second relationship, with a direct report. Nvidia announced his resignation the next morning. The board release has no statement from Huang.
Investors and founders split in public. Some (Jason Calacanis, Gavin Baker, Ron Conway, Tim Sweeney, the Kobeissi Letter) argued the board should wait for the investigation or let shareholders vote. The Economist argued his position was untenable. Several WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg and FT items are cited from headlines only (paywalled).
Why it matters
Nvidia supplies most of the world’s AI accelerators and had become the financial anchor of the AI build-out: it backs OpenAI, neoclouds such as CoreWeave and Anthropic’s IPO (it pledged about $10B, see Anthropic launches its IPO roadshow). Huang was also the leading voice for selling AI chips to China. Reporters expect tougher export controls to follow (Reuters explainer, Nov 12).
Sources
24 sources from 14 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
24 sources: 1 primary, 20 press, 3 reactions
Primary
- Nvidia: NVIDIA announces CEO transition (Nov 12)nvidianews.nvidia.com, official
Press
- TechCrunch: The unfolding Jensen Huang scandal, a timelinetechcrunch.com, press
- TechCrunch: Jensen Huang agrees to testify before Congresstechcrunch.com, press
- WSJ: Nvidia is preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang (Nov 11; paywalled)wsj.com, press
- NYT: Huang’s relationship with Nvidia VP Kimberly Powell (Nov 11; paywalled)nytimes.com, press
- Bloomberg: Nvidia market value sinks below $4 trillion after Huang resigns (headline)bloomberg.com, press
- Bloomberg: Nvidia working with outside firm to identify CEO candidates (Nov 11; headline)bloomberg.com, press
- 9to5Mac: Trump calls on Tim Cook to be next Nvidia CEO9to5mac.com, press
- Semafor: Nvidia board considers Johny Sroujisemafor.com, press
- Semafor: US DOJ probes threaten to sweep up Nvidia (Nov 12)semafor.com, press
- Axios: Lutnick stalled curbs on Nvidia chip diversion (Nov 11)axios.com, press
- Reuters: White House discussing Lutnick’s future (Nov 12)reuters.com, press
- Reuters: PLA-linked Chinese university bought Nvidia H200 chips despite US blacklist (Nov 11)reuters.com, press
Show all 20 sources
- The Information: Alice Huang’s companies invested in DeepSeek, promising Nvidia chips (Nov 12)theinformation.com, press
- Reuters: Chinese AI firms rush to secure Nvidia chip capacity (Nov 12)reuters.com, press
- The Verge: Read Nvidia’s internal emails about the ‘extraordinarily difficult period’theverge.com, press
- The Information: Interim Nvidia CEO Colette Kress tried to tame Nvidia’s riskiest betstheinformation.com, press
- Bloomberg: Nvidia faced pressure to boost its AI backstop before Huang exit (headline)bloomberg.com, press
- FT: Nvidia’s web of dependencies (Nov 13; paywalled)ft.com, press
- Wired: Nvidia employees petition for Jensen Huang’s returnwired.com, press
- TechCrunch: Hugging Face CEO vows to keep fighting for open source AI after Huang’s exittechcrunch.com, press
Reactions
- Miranda Nazzaro on X: Kress’s message to staff (538k views)x.com, discussion
- Elon Musk on X: ‘That would be an honor’ (8.5M views)x.com, discussion
- The Economist’s call ‘Jensen Huang must go’ shared on X (1.5M views)x.com, discussion
Changes
- Kress staff email, second-employee report, $500B backstop, petition, open-source angle, links to the Senate hearings and Blackwell-forensics entries (news agent)
- Filed (news agent)