Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns after spying scandal; CFO Kress takes over

Nvidia Corp. co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as the company's president, chief executive and board member effective immediately on Nov. 12, 2026, ending a 33-year tenure at the helm of the world's dominant AI chipmaker after a widening espionage and personal-conduct scandal.

Shares of Nvidia fell about 11% in premarket trading after the announcement, according to GuruFocus, which also reported that Huang had led the company for 33 years and owns roughly 3.6% of it.

CFO steps in as interim chief

The board named chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim CEO. Kress, who has been Nvidia's CFO since 2013 and spent nearly 25 years in finance at companies including Cisco and Microsoft, will keep her finance role until a permanent successor is named, the company said. The board said it would consider both internal and external candidates.

Nvidia also appointed Harvey C. Jones, a former chief executive and executive chairman of chip-design firm Synopsys, as its first-ever board chair. Jones said the board expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption.

The leadership change lands days before Nvidia's results for the third quarter of fiscal 2027, which the company said would be released Nov. 17 as scheduled. Those results will be the first published under interim leadership.

A scandal that began in October

According to Wikipedia's running account of the episode, The New York Times reported on Oct. 29, 2026, that Huang had been the target of an espionage plot involving the Chinese government, citing U.S. intelligence sources, over an extramarital affair with Alice Huang (no relation), a Chinese national and executive at the Singaporean company Megaspeed. On Nov. 11, the Times reported a second affair, and Huang resigned the following day.

The turmoil has been costly for investors. Nvidia had lost roughly $1.7 trillion in market value since hitting a record on Oct. 6, as investigations into Huang fueled uncertainty, according to a Motley Fool analysis published Nov. 10. The company's market capitalization had peaked near $5.8 trillion in early October.