Nvidia’s longtime finance chief takes over from its co-founder as the board promises continuity, searches for a permanent CEO and faces unresolved questions over security and executive conduct.
Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang has resigned as president, CEO and director, effective immediately.
Colette Kress, its finance chief since 2013, becomes interim CEO while retaining her existing duties.
Directors are searching for a permanent successor while an independent investigation examines allegations of foreign intelligence targeting.
Nvidia has handed interim control to Colette Kress, its executive vice president and chief financial officer since September 2013, after the immediate resignation of Jensen Huang, the co-founder who had led the AI chipmaker for 33 years. The November 12 transition follows reports of two extramarital relationships, including one involving an alleged Chinese intelligence asset. The company’s announcement gave no reason for his departure.
The change separates Nvidia from the executive who directed its products, represented it to investors and pressed Washington to ease chip exports to China. Kress brings long experience with its finances and customers. How the company will replace Huang’s technical leadership—and what the security inquiry will establish—remain unresolved.
Nvidia’s announced sequence: an independent investigation, a leadership transition and a scheduled November 17 earnings release. Sources: NVIDIA board statement and transition announcement. Source: NVIDIA board statement.
A finance veteran takes over a founder-led business
Kress will remain CFO and executive vice president while serving as interim CEO. Before joining Nvidia, she spent nearly 25 years in technology finance, including positions at Cisco and Microsoft. Her experience included running finance for Microsoft’s Server and Tools division, according to a profile of her career. She is a familiar presence on Nvidia’s earnings calls, but has spent much of her career outside engineering.
The board appointed Harvey C. Jones, a technology executive and venture investor who previously served as CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys, as Nvidia’s first-ever board chair. In the company’s announcement, Jones cited Kress’s knowledge of the business, customers, operations and financial position, alongside an experienced leadership team, as grounds for confidence in her appointment.
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Kress also helped arrange financing for many of Nvidia’s largest customers, according to a profile of her work as CFO. Her responsibilities have therefore extended beyond reporting sales to helping finance the buyers behind them.
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 to make graphics chips for gaming. Its subsequent CUDA technology allowed those chips to be used for general-purpose computing, helping explain the company’s expansion beyond graphics. Huang drove product strategy and became its public face, as a report on his departure describes. He also maintained dozens of direct reports and hands-on influence over technology development, according to the profile of Kress. A separate report put his shareholding at about 3.6%, a continuing financial stake distinct from his executive and board positions.
Jones said the board expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption. That is a pledge from the new leadership, whose announcement does not spell out how Huang’s product responsibilities will be reassigned.
Company-reported purchases of non-marketable equity securities, shown as cash-outflow magnitudes. The category does not identify how much went to customers. Source: NVIDIA. Source: NVIDIA fiscal 2026 results.
The financial stakes extend beyond chip sales
Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 results show the scale of the business Kress helped manage. For the year ended January 25, 2026, the company reported revenue of $215.9 billion, up 65% from the previous fiscal year. Data Center revenue was $193.7 billion—about 90% of the total, calculated by dividing the two company figures.
The same financial statements show $102.7 billion in annual cash generated by operations. Purchases of non-marketable equity securities rose to $17.5 billion from $1.5 billion in fiscal 2025. The category does not identify how much went to customers. Nvidia’s release separately described an investment and technology partnership with Anthropic. The figures show that allocating capital has become a substantial part of managing the company alongside selling its computing systems.
These results provide a historical baseline for the business Kress inherits; the next earnings release will provide a more recent picture.
Nvidia shares fell more than 11.5% before the market opened on November 12, then traded down nearly 8% in early trading, according to a market report. Those are intraday snapshots rather than a closing result. As the second-largest U.S. company by market capitalization, Nvidia has substantial weight in indexes including the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100.
An account of the resignation, citing earlier reporting by The New York Times, said U.S. intelligence agencies had determined that Alice Huang was passing information to Beijing. It also relayed the Times’ November 11 report of a second relationship with an Nvidia executive who reported to him. The Associated Press said it could not independently confirm those reports. China has denied an effort to ensnare Huang.
Nvidia’s board had announced an independent investigation on November 8 into reporting that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. Its statement assigned oversight to independent directors assisted by outside independent counsel. It said the board had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets had been compromised, and that Huang had committed to cooperate.
That statement also expressed confidence in Huang and his leadership team, four days before his resignation. It was an initial board position, not a completed investigative finding.
Megaspeed’s commercial relationship with Nvidia adds an export-control question to the security allegations. It has faced claims of illicitly shipping advanced Nvidia chips into China; Singapore has said it is investigating those claims. The company said in December that there was no evidence of such exports. In a November 12 statement quoted in the resignation account, Megaspeed said it had cooperated with the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which enforces technology export restrictions, and had hired a U.S. law firm to conduct a chip census and verify its export controls.
The report also cited Singapore corporate records showing Megaspeed’s total assets rose roughly 90-fold from late 2023 to 2024, to almost $3 billion, while revenue rose from none in 2023 to more than $294 million in 2024. The figures describe the rapid expansion of a customer now facing export-control scrutiny.
Huang had lobbied to loosen restrictions on Nvidia’s sales to China and won President Donald Trump’s approval in January for sales of its H200 chips, according to the same account. Trump said on November 8 that the FBI was investigating the affair. Trump’s announcement of an investigation did not establish whether secrets had been compromised.
Congressional pressure includes a request from Republican leaders of three House committees for Huang to give a closed-door briefing, according to a report on the political response. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, separately said in a statement after the resignation that leaving the job did not absolve Huang, other executives or Nvidia of responsibility for national-security risks or potential legal violations. These are demands for accountability, not findings of wrongdoing.
The next decisions belong to the board
Huang had not publicly identified an immediate successor before leaving, according to the profile of Kress. Directors will consider internal and external candidates for permanent CEO. Trump publicly urged that Apple’s Tim Cook replace Huang, according to the report on the political response; Nvidia’s announcement named no permanent successor and set no deadline for the search.
The immediate public test is November 17. Nvidia says it will release third-quarter fiscal 2027 results at approximately 1:20 p.m. Pacific time, followed by an earnings call at 2 p.m., keeping its existing timetable. The call offers Kress an opportunity to explain responsibility for product decisions, customer financing and delivery commitments during the transition.
The board’s investigation has a separate task: determining whether sensitive information was compromised. Appointing a permanent CEO can settle who leads Nvidia; resolving the security questions will require evidence from that inquiry and any government investigations.
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