Nvidia’s 33-year era came to an end on November 12, 2026. The company’s co-founder, president, and chief executive officer, Jensen Huang, stepped down from his roles effective immediately following an investigation conducted by the board of directors. In a statement, Nvidia’s board announced that Huang had resigned both as CEO and from the board, and that chief financial officer Colette Kress had been appointed interim successor.
The decision became the latest link in a chain of allegations that has shaken the company’s share price over the past week. Media reports about Huang’s personal relationships and the independent review that followed led the board to convene an emergency meeting. Before making its final decision, the board worked through the night on the company’s communications strategy; with the morning announcement, Huang’s departure was made official.
Two critical appointments in management
Colette Kress, who has served as CFO since 2013, has taken the helm of the company. Kress will serve as both CFO and interim CEO until a permanent successor is appointed. In the same statement, Nvidia also named Harvey C. Jones, who has been on the board since the company’s founding in 1993, as the first independent chair in the company’s history. Jones said that operations, customer commitments, and the product roadmap would continue without interruption in this new period.
Kress’s first message was to employees. Saying that she believes in the company’s future, Kress met with her team at the Santa Clara headquarters to discuss leadership and continuity plans.
The market reaction was harsh
Nvidia shares saw heavy selling after the news broke. According to data cited by CNN, about $1.76 trillion was wiped from the company’s market value. While Wall Street views Kress’s financial discipline positively, the consensus is that volatility will continue until a permanent technical leader is appointed. The replacement of the fast decision-making model embodied by Huang with committee-based processes is creating a kind of uncertainty investors are not used to.
The political dimension of the issue is also growing. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast announced that Huang will testify before Congress before Thanksgiving. According to the BBC, after the second relationship allegation surfaced, the board concluded the matter with a resignation announcement rather than even needing to vote on whether Huang could remain in office.
Short-term risk on the operations side is limited
Nvidia’s chip roadmap depends not on Huang’s day-to-day work, but on engineering plans drawn up years ago. The Blackwell generation and the Rubin architecture that will follow are moving forward on a schedule carried out by thousands of engineers. Capacity reservations with TSMC and CoWoS packaging agreements are multi-year and binding; GPU demand from hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta is also unchanged in the short term.
The real test is in the medium term. Roughly half of Nvidia’s revenue comes from four major customers, and each of those companies is developing its own accelerator: Google TPU, Amazon Trainium, Microsoft Azure Maia, Meta MTIA. The weakening of the personal diplomacy network Huang built with these giants could accelerate their transition timelines. CUDA’s software lock-in is also being eroded by Triton and new PyTorch releases. In short, Nvidia is not losing its throne overnight; but its era of unquestioned dominance is ending, and for the first time the company will be tested without the shadow of its founder.
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