Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO, leaving the finance chief in charge of the AI boom's key supplier

Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's president, chief executive and board member on Thursday, effective immediately. The move ends a 33-year run at the company he co-founded. Chief financial officer Colette Kress becomes interim CEO and keeps her finance job.

The board says it will consider internal and external candidates for the permanent role. It gave no timeline. Nvidia has not said publicly why Huang left.

For buyers of AI computing and for investors, the timing is hard. Nvidia supplies most of the chips behind the AI buildout, and Huang has been the public face of the company. The company reports quarterly results on Tuesday, Nov. 17, and that date still stands.

Board chair Harvey Jones said the board expects "operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption," according to the company release as quoted by FinanceFeeds. Kress said she would build on the foundation Huang created.

Markets mark down Nvidia and companies tied to it

Nvidia shares fell more than 10% in premarket trading Thursday, according to Reuters, as cited by FinanceFeeds. CNBC put the drop at 10.4% as of 8:59 a.m. Eastern, FinanceFeeds reported, and Yahoo Finance reported a fall of about 10%. That followed a drop of about 8% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, according to The Block, as cited by FinanceFeeds.

Earlier in the morning, Fox Business put the stock at $160.50 shortly before 8 a.m. Eastern, down 7.6% from a $173.73 close on Wednesday. ABC News reported that the shares had already lost 24% over the past month, or about $1.4 trillion in market value.

The selling spread to companies tied to Nvidia's money and chips. CoreWeave, a cloud provider that rents out Nvidia-powered computing and that Nvidia backs, was down about 7% shortly before 8 a.m. Eastern, according to Fox Business, and down 14% later in premarket trading, according to Yahoo Finance. Yahoo Finance also reported declines at Nebius, TSMC, Micron and SK Hynix.

Rivals moved the other way. AMD rose and Broadcom edged higher, as some investors bet that Nvidia's troubles could send more chip business their way, Yahoo Finance reported.

Wall Street is split, according to analyst notes reported by Yahoo Finance. Bernstein downgraded the stock and halved its price target to $200 from $400. Oppenheimer downgraded the shares and removed its price target. Raymond James kept a Strong Buy rating, saying it doubted the distraction changes the company's fundamentals. Stifel's Ruben Roy wrote that what matters for the stock is "less whether a change occurs than how it is executed."

What it means for customers, partners and the AI buildout

Nvidia's biggest customers are AI labs and cloud providers, and the board's promise of no interruption speaks to them. Kress has been CFO since 2013, but ABC News noted that Huang had no obvious successor.

The risk goes beyond chip orders. Huang used Nvidia's large cash reserves to back cloud providers, suppliers and AI labs, Reuters noted in a report carried by BNN Bloomberg, and his exit creates uncertainty about those relationships. Yahoo Finance noted that Nvidia is set to invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic through a private share sale ahead of Anthropic's planned stock market listing, and said the scandal could rattle investor confidence in that offering.

Huang was also Nvidia's main voice in Washington on chip export rules, including sales to China. Reuters, in the BNN Bloomberg report, said his departure could affect US chip export policy, given his push to keep access to the Chinese market and his close ties to President Trump.

Legal and political pressure is building too. ABC News reported a proposed class action accusing Nvidia and Huang of defrauding shareholders by concealing his ties to a former Megaspeed executive, described below. Yahoo Finance reported that House Republicans have asked for a closed hearing with Huang. Bloomberg reported that directors were working with an outside firm to identify potential successors, according to Yahoo Finance.

What has been reported, and what is not confirmed

The reasons for the board's actions come from news reports. Nvidia has not confirmed them.

Reuters, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that the board met on Wednesday to consider removing Huang. The Wall Street Journal reported the same deliberations, according to Fox Business. Both reports tied the meeting to accounts of two extramarital relationships.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Huang had a relationship with a senior executive who reported to him, according to CNBC, as cited by FinanceFeeds, and Reuters, as carried by BNN Bloomberg. Earlier, the Times reported a close relationship with Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive, according to the Associated Press. Megaspeed is a Singapore-based data center company that partners with Nvidia. The two Huangs are not related.

The Times also reported that US intelligence had concluded Alice Huang was gathering information for China, according to the AP and ABC News. Beijing denies it. Foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the allegation "unsubstantiated" and "nothing but smears against China," the AP reported. The reports reviewed for this article include no public comment from Alice Huang.

Megaspeed, responding to a Bloomberg report, said reviews by the US Commerce Department, Malaysia's trade ministry and Nvidia found no evidence of illegal chip transfers or other violations, NewsBytes reported. The company said it complies with export controls. Its statement, as reported, did not address the claims about Alice Huang.

On Nov. 8, Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation, overseen by independent directors with outside counsel, into reporting that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. It said it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised.

Huang, in an open letter, acknowledged a personal relationship with a business executive he did not name, apologized to his wife and the company, and said he would "cooperate fully" with the investigation, the AP reported. He has denied compromising national security or company secrets, CNBC reported, according to FinanceFeeds. Trump said Huang told him he had no idea the woman was a spy, Reuters reported in the article carried by BNN Bloomberg.

Much remains unknown. No charges against Huang have been reported. The board has not said what its investigation found, whether it is finished, or whether any sensitive information was obtained.