Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO, with CFO Colette Kress stepping in

Nvidia's board announced on Thursday that Jensen Huang has resigned as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. CFO Colette Kress has agreed to serve as interim CEO.

The exit follows reports of extramarital affairs. CNN says the reports involved a woman allegedly working as a spy for China, and that Huang admitted to an affair over the weekend in a public apology without naming anyone. Nvidia's own release gives no reason for his departure.

The board's announcement

Kress keeps her CFO job while she's interim chief, until a permanent successor is named. The board will consider internal and external candidates. Harvey C. Jones was appointed as the board's first-ever chair.

Jones said the board expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue "without interruption". Nvidia also said it will report third-quarter results on Tuesday, November 17, as scheduled.

Huang's exit came days after the company announced an investigation. That statement cited reporting that he "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort." The allegations aren't settled: Reuters reported a third alleged affair on Thursday.

Shares drop, rivals rise

Nvidia fell as much as 14.35% after the opening bell, briefly erasing roughly $600 billion in market value, then pared losses to close down 4.34%. That's a smaller hit than the first minutes suggested.

CoreWeave, a company backed by Nvidia, fell 6.86%, while AMD and Broadcom each rose about 6%. Traders, it seems, were already looking for other places to put AI money.

The stakes for US AI

Analysts disagree on how much damage this does. Nvidia controls roughly 90% of the market for the GPUs used to train and run AI models. Dan Ives of Wedbush told investors the company is roughly 2-3 years ahead of its nearest competitor and that demand isn't changing because Huang is gone.

Others see a bigger problem. Ives also put Nvidia's value at $300 a share with Huang and $225 without him. Bill Blain said Nvidia's dependence on Huang is a major market risk, and that the company lacks clear succession planning. TechCrunch notes Huang never established a succession plan.

Policy is the other pressure point. Bloomberg's opinion column says Huang had direct access to President Trump for nearly two years and argued publicly that export controls on China were failing. Trump called the scandal a "horrible thing" and "so sad." I'd guess the chip export debate loses its loudest advocate, though that's my read, not a reported outcome.

Spending is exposed too. Goldman Sachs expects AI infrastructure spending to reach US$7.6 trillion within five years. Nvidia has invested billions in some of its own customers, which helped fuel data centre demand. In August it said it would provide up to $105 billion in financing for an OpenAI data centre in Ohio. Whether a new chief keeps writing cheques like that is an open question.

Next steps: earnings, a CEO search and Washington

The first test is the November 17 earnings call, which Kress will probably lead. Investors will want to hear how she plans to handle customer commitments and financing deals.

The permanent CEO search is the bigger one. Ives said it will be challenging to find a successor with Huang's leadership and strategic vision. Anthropic's IPO, backed by a $10 billion commitment from Nvidia, is also coming up, and Axios calls it a referendum on Wall Street's faith in the AI trade.

Top Senate Democrats are demanding that Commerce Secretary Lutnick and other senior officials preserve records of their dealings with Nvidia and Huang. That could lead to a wider investigation.

Honestly, I'd treat the headline claim that this "jeopardizes" US AI dominance with caution. The chips, roadmap and demand are still there, and the stock recovered much of its early loss. The harder questions are leadership, policy influence and how Nvidia's financing deals hold up, and none of those will be answered this week.