Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO; Colette Kress interim, Harvey Jones first chair

The board's statement said it has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team and expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption. Kress said she would build on the foundation Huang created over the last 33 years, and the board thanked him for his contributions to Nvidia and to the industry. Nvidia also confirmed that it will report its third-quarter results for fiscal 2027 on Tuesday, 17 November, as scheduled, with the results release at about 1:20 pm Pacific time and a call at 2 pm.

The announcement does not give a reason for Huang's resignation. It does not say whether he leaves the company altogether or keeps any role, and it does not describe his terms, any payment or any other change to the board. It also does not say how the share price has reacted since the announcement. Those gaps matter because of what came before.

On Sunday, 9 November, the board said it had opened an independent investigation into whether Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort, while stating that it had confidence in him and saw no reason to believe that national security or company secrets had been compromised. The board met late on Wednesday, 11 November, to discuss whether to remove him, and Nvidia shares fell about 8% in premarket trading on Thursday after falling more than 20% over the previous month, according to market reports at the time. Allegations about Huang's personal conduct have been reported, and none has been tested or confirmed by the company. The 12 November filing does not link the resignation to any of them. What can be said is only what the company has put on record: that he resigned, that the board accepted it, and that new leadership is in place.

Why the succession matters

Huang, who is 63, co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and led it as it moved from graphics cards for games to the centre of the market for chips that train and run artificial intelligence systems. The company was valued at about $4.2 trillion before this week's fall, and its results are watched as a gauge of spending on data centres. He did not control it through shares: he owns roughly 3.6%, according to market data, so his departure is a board decision and not a shareholder fight.

Until now the company had no board chair, which analysts described as unusual for a company of its size. Creating the post and filling it with an outside figure with experience at the head of a listed technology company is the board's first step to show that governance is being steadied. Kress has been named in analyst commentary as one of the likeliest internal candidates for the permanent role, together with the engineer Ian Buck, though the company has named no one and has said it will look outside as well.

Three House committee chairs had asked Huang to attend a closed-door briefing by 18 November and said they would pursue a subpoena otherwise. It is not clear what happens to that request now that he has resigned. Several lawmakers had called for him to step down, and the debate over limits on exports of advanced chips to China, on which Huang took a position against strict controls, continues regardless.

The results, the reason and the search

Three things follow in the coming days. The first is the results on 17 November, when Kress will be on the call as interim chief executive; investors will look for guidance for the next quarter and for any comment on customer orders. The second is whether the board gives a reason for the resignation or publishes any finding from the independent investigation, which the filing does not mention. The third is the timetable for the permanent appointment: the company has not said how long the search will take. Until a successor is named, Kress holds both roles, and the board, under its new chair, is responsible for the choice.