Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO After 33 Years as Colette Kress Steps In 

The founder who turned a gaming-chip startup into the engine of the AI boom is gone overnight, leaving the company in the hands of the finance chief who has stood beside him for 13 years. 

For 33 years, Nvidia and Jensen Huang have been almost impossible to picture apart. On Thursday, November 12, 2026, that changed. Nvidia announced that Huang had resigned as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately, just days after he publicly admitted to an extramarital affair and apologised to his family and his colleagues. 

Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has been named interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor. 

A Founder’s Exit, and a Very Human Reckoning 

Huang, 63, co-founded Nvidia in 1993. By his own account on Sunday, he had been unfaithful to his wife, and he said sorry to his family and to Nvidia’s employees. 

The story did not stop there. Multiple outlets reported that US intelligence officials believe the woman involved was working on behalf of China’s intelligence services. Beijing has denied the allegation, and these claims remain unproven. Nvidia’s board launched an independent investigation but said it has no reason to believe national security or company trade secrets were compromised. The New York Times separately reported a relationship between Huang and an Nvidia executive. 

Nvidia’s announcement credited Huang with profound contributions to the company but did not give a reason for his departure, and it carried no comment from Huang himself. 

Behind the headlines is a plainer truth: a leader whose name was synonymous with a company has stepped away under the weight of his own personal choices, and thousands of people who built their careers around his vision now have to find their footing without him. 

From Graphics Chips to the Heart of the AI Age 

When Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem founded Nvidia in 1993, the goal was better graphics for computers and games. Over three decades, the company grew far beyond that. Its CUDA platform opened up GPUs for scientific computing and artificial intelligence, and its chips now power the data centres behind some of the world’s most advanced AI systems. 

That journey made Nvidia one of the most valuable companies on the planet, and made Huang one of the most recognisable faces in technology. It also meant that investors, customers and employees had come to see the founder and the company as one story. 

The market reacted accordingly. Nvidia shares fell sharply as the news broke, and reports put the value wiped off the company in recent days in the hundreds of billions of dollars. 

The People Left to Steady the Ship 

Stepping into the role is Colette Kress, who joined Nvidia in September 2013 after finance roles at Cisco, Microsoft and Texas Instruments. Over the years, she became the other familiar voice on Nvidia’s earnings calls, presenting results and fielding investor questions alongside Huang. 

Kress will keep her CFO duties while serving as interim chief executive. CNBC reported that she planned to gather the executive team at Nvidia’s Santa Clara headquarters, and that she and the new board chair addressed employees directly. For the people inside the company, those first conversations matter as much as any market statement: they answer the question of whether the place they work is stable. 

Outside voices are cautiously supportive. One analyst told CNBC he expects Kress to hold the interim role for roughly a year, and that a permanent chief executive is likely to come from outside the company. 

A New Chair, and No Ready-Made Succession Plan 

The board also named Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever chair. Jones is a former CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys, a venture investor, and has sat on Nvidia’s board since the company’s earliest days in 1993. Reporting by Fortune notes that Nvidia previously had no board chair and had not set out a clear succession plan, which makes Jones a link to the company’s institutional memory at a delicate moment. 

Jones said the board has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team, and expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption. 

What Happens Next 

The board is searching for a permanent CEO and will consider both internal and external candidates. Meanwhile, the political fallout continues: a senior US Senate Republican has summoned Huang to testify, and lawmakers from both parties have called for scrutiny of national security questions and chip export controls. 

For Nvidia, the next chapter will test whether a company built on one founder’s conviction can hold on to its culture, its customers and its pace of innovation without him. For Huang, it is a very public lesson in how quickly a legacy built over 33 years can be reshaped by a single week. 

Sources: Nvidia Form 8-K (SEC), CNN, CNBC, Al Jazeera, Yahoo Finance, Fortune, The Hill.