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Nvidia has an interim chief (6 min), with captions The story Nvidia announced on Thursday, November 12, that founder Jensen Huang had resigned as president...

Nvidia has an interim chief (6 min), with captions The story Nvidia announced on Thursday, November 12, that founder Jensen Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately. The California company, which makes most of the chips behind artificial intelligence, named chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive. Kress keeps the finance job until a permanent successor is named. The announcement gave no reason for the resignation. The change is significant because Huang led Nvidia for 33 years, from its founding in 1993, meaning the company had one chief executive for its entire history. The week moved quickly: on Sunday, November 8, the board opened an independent investigation and said it had confidence in Huang, who emailed employees that day apologizing and saying he was fully committed to Nvidia. On Tuesday, November 10, independent directors retained outside counsel, and on Wednesday, November 11, the board accepted his resignation, according to the filing. Three days separated the board's statement of confidence from the resignation it accepted. The board's November 8 statement said it had confidence in Huang and his leadership team and would provide further updates as appropriate, issued in light of recent reporting that he had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. In his email to employees, Huang said he was unfaithful to his wife and took full responsibility, and said he was fully committed to Nvidia. He is not quoted in the announcement of his resignation, which does not mention the investigation and sets no deadline for choosing a permanent chief executive. It does say the board thanks him for what it called immeasurable contributions. Kress has been Nvidia's chief financial officer since September 2013 and is 59, according to the filing. Before that she spent nearly 25 years in finance at technology companies, including 13 years at Microsoft, three at Cisco and earlier time at Texas Instruments. She holds a finance degree from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. The board also appointed Harvey C. Jones, a director since 1993, as its first-ever chair; he has run the private family office Square Wave Ventures since 2004 and previously served as chief executive of Synopsys. In the quarter that ended July 26, 2026, Nvidia reported revenue of 96.2 billion dollars, up 106 percent from a year earlier, with data centers accounting for 89.0 billion dollars of it. Nvidia shares opened more than 13 percent lower on Thursday and closed down 4.3 percent, while the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq each fell 0.3 percent. Kress said the focus remains on serving customers, partners, developers and shareholders, and Jones said the company expects its operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption. Third-quarter results are due Tuesday, November 17, with an analyst call at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern. No date has been set for choosing a permanent chief executive or for the findings of the investigation. The board is running the search and will consider internal and external candidates. Highlights Highlight In pictures Listen The episode as audio