Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO After Affair Revelations; CFO Colette Kress Named Interim Chief

Nvidia's board of directors has accepted the resignation of Jensen Huang as the company's chief executive, elevating Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress to interim CEO while a search for a permanent successor gets underway, according to reporting from The New York Times and TechCrunch.

What Happened

Huang resigned on Thursday, November 12, 2026, following revelations that he had an affair with an executive who reported to him and with a woman U.S. officials had identified as a Chinese spy, The New York Times reported. Nvidia's 10-member board met for several hours Wednesday evening and agreed to name Kress as interim chief executive until a permanent successor is found, the Times reported. TechCrunch reported that Nvidia confirmed in a regulatory filing that its board accepted Huang's resignation on Wednesday.

Alongside the leadership change, Nvidia's board appointed Harvey C. Jones as the company's first-ever board chairman, according to the Times, TechCrunch and CNBC. Jones has served on Nvidia's board since the company's founding in 1993 and is a former CEO and chairman of Synopsys, the chip-design software maker, per TechCrunch and CNBC.

Why Huang Resigned

The resignation came just days after Huang admitted to a romantic affair with an alleged Chinese spy, an episode TechCrunch described as having sparked a U.S. national security crisis. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast told reporters that Huang had tentatively agreed, just before his resignation, to testify as part of an ongoing congressional probe, according to CNN; CNBC reported that Mast said Huang was willing to appear before Congress as soon as next week.

Notably, the circumstances mark a reversal from Nvidia's own prior public posture. In a statement posted to its newsroom days earlier, the company said its board was initiating an independent investigation, overseen by a committee of independent directors and outside counsel, into reporting that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. At that time, the board said it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised and expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team.

Colette Kress Steps In

Kress, who has served as Nvidia's chief financial officer, will continue in that role as Executive Vice President and CFO while also acting as interim CEO until a permanent successor has been named, the company said according to TechCrunch and CNBC. CNBC reported that the interim arrangement is likely to last about a year.

In Nvidia's official statement, as reported by TechCrunch and CNBC, the company thanked Huang directly: "Jensen's contributions to NVIDIA are profound. NVIDIA is one of the most consequential technology companies in the world. The Board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry." The statement did not detail a specific cause for his departure.

Separately, board chairman Harvey Jones said in a statement cited by the Times that the board was confident in Kress and the executive team and expected "the company's operations, customer commitments and product road map to continue without interruption."

A Search Without a Clear Heir

Nvidia's board said Thursday it would begin a search for a permanent CEO and would consider both internal and external candidates, the Times and CNBC reported. That search arrives without an obvious internal front-runner. The Times reported that Huang had such tight control over Nvidia that there is no clear successor, and TechCrunch noted he ran a notably flat organization with roughly 60 direct reports, with no heir apparent or formal succession plan in place, even though two of his children held executive roles at the company.

Despite his outsized influence as Nvidia's founder and largest individual shareholder — the Times put his stake at 3.56% and TechCrunch at about 3.5% — Huang did not hold supervoting shares, meaning the board retained the power to remove him at any time, TechCrunch reported. The stakes of the transition are heightened by Nvidia's market position: the Times reported the company controls an estimated 90% of the market for computer chips used in major AI projects, a segment central to the broader U.S. economy.

Political and Analyst Reaction

The political fallout has continued beyond the resignation itself. Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement cited by CNBC that Huang's decision to resign "does not absolve him, other executives, or the company as a whole of responsibility for putting our national security at risk," signaling that congressional scrutiny of Nvidia's export-control compliance is likely to continue regardless of the leadership change.

On the market side, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC that Kress can "steady the ship" in the near term, predicting the interim role will likely last about a year. Ives said he expects Nvidia will ultimately look outside the company for a long-term successor, a view that reflects his own assessment rather than any confirmed plan from Nvidia's board.

Bottom Line

Nvidia has moved quickly to install interim leadership and a first-ever board chairman following Huang's abrupt resignation, but the company has not detailed a timeline for naming a permanent CEO. With no clear internal successor identified and congressional scrutiny of the national-security angle still unresolved, the coming weeks are likely to center on how the search unfolds and whether lawmakers' questions about export-control compliance add further pressure on the company's new leadership.