Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, has resigned as President, CEO, and member of the board, effective immediately. That is the message which was posted yesterday morning on the Nvidia newsroom.

Get to the latest updates

He has been at the centre of a big ol’ scandal since last week, which threatened his position at the head of one of the biggest companies in the world. It started with a report over his relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset, which moved into him emailing his entire workforce to say sorry that he’s had an affair (though didn’t name the person), an invite to talk to national security and foreign affairs officials in US Congress next week, and now reports of potentially a second affair and third affair, this time both with an Nvidia employee, have come to light.

This is what sparked the emergency board meeting Wednesday night which has culminated in his resignation from all sectors of the company.

Nvidia CFO, Colette Kress has taken over as interim CEO, while the company searches for a permanent replacement for Jensen, with Harvey C. Jones appointed the first ever chair of Nvidia’s board of directors.

“Colette Kress, current Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Nvidia, has agreed to serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer,” reads the statement on the Nvidia newsroom. “Kress will continue to serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer while serving as Interim Chief Executive Officer until a permanent successor has been named. The Board is initiating a search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer and will consider internal and external candidates.”

“Nvidia’s strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,” said Colette Kress, Interim CEO and CFO, Nvidia. “We will continue advancing the work that has made NVIDIA a leader in accelerated computing and AI, and execute on the opportunities ahead. Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders.”

There has so far been no statement from Jensen himself on the matter, but the Nvidia statement thanks him for his service…

“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.”

Latest updates

Here is a brief timeline of events which kicked off last week with a story by the New York times into Jensen’s relationship with Alice Huang.

• October 29 – New York Times report comes out covering the relationship with an alleged foreign intelligence asset.
• November 5 – Jensen is called to a meeting with various foreign affairs and national security committee leaders in US Congress, set for November 18.
• November 8 – Jensen sends an email to all Nvidia staff, also published on the company newsroom, admitting to and apologising for an affair. The board also posts a statement on the newsroom saying it was launching an internal investigation.
  • Nvidia share price drops – around 21% since October 28
• November 9 – Donald Trump speaks to press about Jensen, backing the CEO. “He’s an amazing guy. I just hope there’s no problem. If there is a problem, we’ll let you know about it.”
• November 10 – Law firms chase investors to sign up for class action lawsuits or ‘investigations’ into the company. We’ve seen at least five press releases of lawyers offering their services to investors. Nvidia itself hires law firm Wachtell Lipton to lead the internal investigation.
  • The Information reports Alice Huang facilitated some 240,000 AI GPUs, costing around $7.5B, to be accessed by Chinese companies.
  • Axios reports that Howard Lutnick was sent a classified warning memo over the relationship between Jensen and Alice Huang. Noting that Marco Rubio also warned Trump just before they picked up Jensen en route to the China trip
• November 11 – Reports surface that Jensen had a second affair, with an internal Nvidia employee, Kimberly Powell. An emergency board meeting is convened to determine Jen-Hsun’s fate as CEO.
  • Nvidia’s share price plumets even further, to lowest value since June 2025.
• November 12 – Jensen Huang resigns from all positions at Nvidia with CFO Colette Kress taking over the role of interim CEO while the company looks for a successor.

Tim Sweeney said it “would be an Apple firing Steve Jobs level of idiocy” to fire Jensen Huang from his position as CEO. He suggests it would do grievous harm to the US.

Not holding back, he also said it would be a “ridiculous shitshow… to replace one of the leading technology visionaries of the modern era with the company’s money guy.”

Elon Musk just said it would be “an honor” to hire Jensen. I’m sure it would, Elon. I’m sure it would.

Nvidia’s share price has now dropped 13% in pre-market trading.

Reaction to his resignation

Tim Sweeney inevitably has something to say on the matter, as does Clement Delangue, co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face.

Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money on CNBC had this to say:

Who can replace Jensen?

As interim CEO we have, as many predicted (including our Jacob Fox) the current Nvidia chief financial officer, Colette Kress. As a short term measure it makes sense for the board to go straight for the money person who’s been talking with investors at earnings calls for 13 years now. That’s the way to help calm a volatile market, and one that is likely to be spooked losing one of the main proponents for AI.

But what about the long term appointment? Nvidia’s board has reportedly employed an outside agency to aid in identifying candidates for the CEO position, but who would want that job? We’ve got some thoughts as to who might make a good fit, but whether any of them would be keen, or whether the board would be keen on them, is another matter.

• Lip-Bu Tan – CEO, Intel
• Lisa Su – CEO, AMD
• Rene Haas – CEO, Arm
• Elon Musk – CEO, Tesla, SpaceX
• Tim Cook – Executive chairman and ex-CEO, Apple

CNN correspondent for AI, Hadas Gold, has posted on X what she says are the emails sent out to Nvidia employees today from new CEO, Colette Kress, and its first chair of the board, Harvey Jones. There will apparently be a company meeting on November 18, the same day as Jensen is supposed to visit the US Congress.

Trump wants Tim Cook

Donald Trump has spoken up about his buddy Jensen’s resignation, stating that there is only one person for the job: former Apple CEO, Tim Cook. Trump has always spoken very positively about Cook in the past, most especially when talking about his first term in office where he was very impressed with himself “to have the head of Apple calling to ‘kiss my ass'” after a phonecall from Cook.

If you’re after a full breakdown of the timeline surrounding Jensen’s departure, our Jacob Ridley has put together an excellent blow-by-blow account of how it all went down.

Chairman of the Select Committee on China, John Moolenaar, is not mincing his words in this latest statement on the resignation of Jensen Huang. He says: “Nvidia must now change its corporate practices and appoint leadership that makes national security its top priority.”

Just to note, Jensen’s departure from Nvidia doesn’t mean good things for PC gaming

Our Andy has written a considered take on what Nvidia and Jensen parting ways, and especially a new CEO coming in, will mean for PC gamers. And the short of it is: nothing good. Jensen built the company with his co-founders to create computer graphics accelerators that made all your games look awesome™️and while he and the company have moved towards another road he knew that’s what Nvidia was built on.

Anyone else coming into the company isn’t going to have that level of attachment to PC gaming. And certainly looking at the bottom of the balance sheet is not going to be paying much attention to it, either. It’s AI all the way, and we’ve got to hope the GeForce team inside Nvidia keeps pushing for attention and resources in this new era.

Who is Colette Kress, Nvidia interim CEO?

In his quick profile of new interim CEO, Colette Kress, Jacob notes that “you might be excused as a gamer for never hearing about her; an earnings call isn’t everybody’s cup of tea.

“Colette Kress has been chief financial officer at Nvidia since 2013. That’s 13 years sat alongside Jensen in calls with investors and financial institutions to discuss how the company is doing. Kress has been in the role for the record highs of recent years, and the not-so-record lows of others, like the price plummets of ’25, ’21, and ’18.

“Prior to her role at Nvidia, Kress was SVP and CFO at Cisco for a couple of years and Corporate VP at Microsoft for nearly five. She also worked at Texas Instruments—all the big hitters, then.”

Intel is a cautionary tale for Nvidia’s board

It’s not going to be easy to find a replacement for Jensen Huang, and Intel is a prime example of how jumping between CEOs can lead to stagnation.

Here’s Andy on Intel’s revolving door of CEOs and how hard it will be to find someone right for Nvidia’s top job.

“Whoever leads Nvidia next will step into truly gigantic shoes, and in the face of an AI market that looks increasingly wobbly, they’ll need to be the right person for the job. And swapping leaders out on the regular? Well, it’s taken its toll on Intel over the years, that’s for sure.”

Jensen reportedly had an affair with a second Nvidia employee

Reuters reports that Jensen was engaged in an affair with a second Nvidia employee, according to “two people familiar with the matter,” putting the ousted CEO on a two-day streak of extramarital revelations. Reuters has elected not to name the second Nvidia employee, who the outlet was unsuccessful in attempting to contact. We’ll have to see if a third emerges—but at this point, it’s not like Jensen can be any more resigned.

Brian Catanzaro, vice president of appliced deep learning research at Nvidia, and one of the leading brains (brians?) behind Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) has noted his sadness that Jensen Huang is no longer leading Nvidia after his resignation today.

There’s seemingly a lot of sadness, sympathy, or praise around the resignation of Jensen Huang—and I have to say I’ve not seen a whole lot of sympathy for Lori Huang—but so far we have not seen any actual reaction from fellow execs in terms of any kind of protest. Whether we’ll see any Nvidia staffers following him out of the Santa Clara campus, or its other campuses around the world, we may have to wait and see.

It is understood that Jensen has agreed to testify at the US Congress in response to the letter from last week which invited him to attend “a joint, closed-door briefing on Nvidia’s security protocols against foreign adversary espionage and your interactions with a publicly reported People’s Republic of China (PRC) intelligence asset: Megaspeed executive Alice Huang.”

Multiple reports, from CBS and Politico among others, are noting that he will attend and the date of the meeting is now being arranged. The original date in the letter was November 18, and it is understood that it will at least be taking place ahead of the Thanksgiving break.

According to the BBC, “Florida Representative Brian Mast says that Huang indicated he is willing to appear, adding that his resignation as Nvidia CEO “does change the dynamic” surrounding his potential testimony.”

The latest letters

Here is the letter from the Foreign Affairs Committee that was sent out to Jensen Huang yesterday regarding a changed timing for his appearance before said committee. The original request was for a meeting on November 18, but that has been shifted back to December 1 “as an accommodation to reflect recent events.”

It also notes that a failure to cooperate with this request would result in the Foreign Affairs Committee issuing a subpoena”, though reports are that he is cooperating with the request.

Letters have also been sent out to Nvidia general counsel, Tim Teter, and Under Secretary of Commerce, Jeffery Kessler, to request their appearance before Congress over the Huang(s), Nvidia, and MegaSpeed scandal. These other letters reference “AI chip smuggling, adversary military use of Nvidia products, and recent public reports regarding Nvidia’s interference in US export control policies and investigations.”

Nvidia employee petition: “bring back THE boss”

There is reportedly an internal submission to a company ‘suggestion box’ that, that was submitted ahead of Jensen’s resignation, calling for the board to take employee sentiment into account. According to the Wired report, it has attracted more than 1,600 internal comments since it was posted, with a number asking board members to find a way to bring back Huang.

One of the contentions of investigators around chip smuggling is that the big Chinese models might have been trained on restricted hardware. Officials in the US government noted earlier in the year they believed DeepSeek models were trained on Nvidia Blackwell hardware it was not supposed to be able to access.

Now, an ex-OpenAI researcher, Will DePue, claims to have conducted “forensic analysis of publicly released AI models” and has found evidence that DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, and Ant Group have accessed Nvidia Blackwell GPUs to train their models.

That would mean a whole lot of restricted Nvidia chips managed to get themselves over to do exactly what they were not meant to be doing overseas.

PC Gamer hardware editors Dave James and Jacob Ridley take a few minutes to talk about how Nvidia and Jensen got to this point, and what might come next.

The Denny’s restaurant “where Nvidia was born” has taken down the sign commemorating the moment.