Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's president, CEO and board member, effective immediately on Thursday, after reports of two extramarital affairs surfaced within days of each other, according to The Guardian, CNBC, The Verge, Wired, Engadget, TechRadar and Hipertextual. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is taking over as interim CEO.

The resignation comes four days after Nvidia opened an internal investigation into Huang's relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed whom U.S. officials suspect of being a Chinese intelligence asset, and just hours after The New York Times reported a second affair, this one with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to Huang, according to the same outlets.

Huang's exit removes the central figure of the AI industry's biggest supplier at a moment when demand for advanced chips still outpaces supply, according to The Verge. Nvidia controls about 90% of the GPU market as of September 2026, according to Wired, and its chips power the training of frontier AI models at companies across the industry.

Nvidia's board statement does not address the scandal, instead crediting Huang with "profound" contributions to the company he co-founded in 1993, according to The Guardian. The board also named Harvey C. Jones, former CEO of Synopsys, as Nvidia's first-ever board chair, and said it will consider both internal and external candidates in a search for a permanent CEO, according to CNBC, The Verge and Engadget.

Nvidia shares fell more than 10% on Thursday, pushing the company's market capitalization below $4 trillion, according to CNBC. Analysts at Bernstein cut their price target on the stock in half, from $400 to $200, the same day, according to CNBC.

Kress has been with Nvidia since 2013, when Huang personally recruited her after stints at Microsoft and Cisco, according to Wired and Engadget. She will keep her roles as chief financial officer and executive vice president while serving as interim chief executive, according to CNBC.

Before the resignation, Elon Musk said on X it would be "an honor" to hire Huang, while investor Gavin Baker argued the board should wait for the outcome of its investigation before ousting him, according to CNBC. President Donald Trump had also defended Huang, calling him "an honorable guy," according to The Guardian.

Nvidia's stock closed at $173.73 on Wednesday, down from a closing high of $239.24 on Oct. 6, and the company has lost more than $740 billion in market value since last Friday's close, according to CNBC. U.S. lawmakers had already called for Huang's resignation before the second affair became public, adding pressure on the board ahead of Thursday's decision, according to CNBC.

What came before

Huang had admitted the first affair, which involved the Chinese spying allegations, in a letter to employees the previous Sunday, and Nvidia's board had already opened its own investigation, as Cortexplor <a href="https://cortexplor.com/en/nvidia-board-weighs-ousting-huang-second-affair/">reported</a>. Days earlier, U.S. lawmakers had sought a closed-door briefing with Huang over security protocols, and the FBI had confirmed its own investigation into the matter, as Cortexplor also reported.

In practice

  • What's new: Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's president, CEO and board member; CFO Colette Kress takes over on an interim basis, according to The Guardian, CNBC, The Verge, Wired, Engadget, TechRadar and Hipertextual.
  • When: the resignation took effect immediately on Thursday, according to the same outlets.
  • Who's affected: Nvidia and the AI chip supply chain that depends on it — shares fell more than 10% the same day, pushing market value below $4 trillion, according to CNBC.
  • What changes: the company now has a board chair for the first time in its history, Harvey C. Jones, the former Synopsys CEO, and has opened a search for a permanent CEO, considering internal and external candidates, according to CNBC and The Verge.
  • What's missing: Nvidia has not given a timeline for naming Huang's permanent successor, according to CNBC.