Jensen Huang quits Nvidia as CFO Colette Kress takes interim helm; shares close down 4.3%
Nvidia is heading into a critical week without Jensen Huang. The co-founder resigned as president, chief executive and director with immediate effect, and the chipmaker handed day-to-day control to its finance chief, Colette Kress, while it searches for a permanent successor.
What the board announced
In its release, Nvidia said the board will consider internal and external candidates for the permanent job. Kress has been chief financial officer since September 2013 and spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at companies including Cisco and Microsoft before that.
According to the filing, Jones, 73, has served on the board since 1993. Nvidia's release describes him as a former chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys.
I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years.
Jones said the board had "full confidence" in Kress and expected "operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption."
A volatile session
The stock recovered much of its early loss but still finished among the day's biggest decliners. NBC News reported that Nvidia's market value briefly fell below $4 trillion and ended the day barely above that level.
Not every chip stock followed it down, as investors looked for possible winners from the turmoil.
| Thursday close | Move |
|---|---|
| Nvidia | -4.34% ($166.19) |
| Advanced Micro Devices | +5.86% |
| Broadcom | +5.54% |
| Nasdaq Composite | -0.39% |
| S&P 500 | -0.35% |
Source: Xinhua market report, 12 November.
How it unravelled
ABC News reported that Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation on Sunday after reports that Huang had been "the target of a foreign intelligence effort." Huang later told staff in an internal message that he had been "unfaithful" to his wife.
The New York Times then reported that he had also had a relationship with an Nvidia executive who reports to him, ABC said. China's foreign ministry has rejected the spy allegations as unsubstantiated.
Congress wants answers
The chairs of the House Foreign Affairs, China and Intelligence committees asked Huang on Thursday to sit for a closed-door, transcribed interview on 1 December, Euronews reported. They gave him until 8pm EST on Friday to accept and warned that the Foreign Affairs Committee would subpoena him if he did not cooperate.
Foreign Affairs chairman Brian Mast said Huang had agreed to brief lawmakers, NBC News and TechCrunch reported. "I don't want to see anything hurt in Nvidia, but he has some very serious questions to answer," Mast told reporters.
Senate Banking Committee chairman Tim Scott has separately asked Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify.
What to watch
Nvidia says it will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday at about 1:20pm PT, with the earnings call at 2pm PT. It will be the company's first earnings report since Huang's departure.