Nvidia says Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO; finance chief Colette Kress becomes interim chief

Nvidia said on Thursday, November 12, 2026, that Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive officer and a member of its board, effective immediately. The board named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress interim CEO and is starting a search for a permanent successor, according to the company's press release. In a Form 8-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Nvidia said the board accepted the resignation on November 11.

What Nvidia announced

Kress, 59, has been Nvidia's chief financial officer since she joined the company in September 2013, and she will hold both roles until a permanent CEO is named, the company said. Before Nvidia she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft, according to the release.

Jones, 73, has served on the board since 1993 and is the managing partner of Square Wave Ventures, a private family office, the filing says. He is a former chief executive of Synopsys, according to the release. The board expects "the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption," Jones said in the release.

The Form 8-K is signed by Kress as interim CEO. It does not describe any severance or other arrangement with Huang.

What came before the resignation

Neither the press release nor the Form 8-K says why Huang resigned. On November 8, the board said it was opening an independent investigation "in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort." The board said then that it had "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised."

The same day, Nvidia published an email from Huang to employees in which he apologized, said he had been unfaithful to his wife, and said he supported the investigation and would cooperate with it. On November 10, the independent directors said they had retained a former acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and his law firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, to conduct the investigation.

Thursday's release does not mention the investigation or say whether it will continue. US lawmakers had called for Huang's resignation before he stepped down, CNBC reported. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993, according to CNBC.

How the shares reacted

Nvidia shares closed at $173.73 on Wednesday, November 11. On Thursday they opened at $151.01, about 13.1% lower, and fell to $148.80, a drop of 14.3%, before recovering part of the loss, according to Yahoo Finance data. They closed at $166.19, down 4.3% on the day.

The stock was already lower before the announcement: Wednesday's close was about 15% below the $204.64 close of October 30, the same data shows. Bitcoin fell below $72,000 on Thursday, its lowest level since August 20, according to CoinGecko data.

What it could mean for traders

In our assessment, the open questions are who will lead the company permanently and what happens to the board's investigation. Nvidia has given no timetable for either. The results on November 17 will be the first that Kress presents as interim CEO, and investors are likely to listen for any comment on the CEO search and on customer commitments.

A company of Nvidia's size, with a market value close to $4 trillion according to CNBC, carries a large weight in broad US stock indexes, so large moves in its shares also move index funds. That is a description of how indexes work, not a forecast of where the shares go next.