Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO; CFO Kress steps in as interim chief

Nvidia said on Nov. 12 that founder Jensen Huang resigned as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO while the board looks for a permanent successor. Bloomberg, in a report on retail trading, described the exit as an ouster.

What the filing and press release say

The change is disclosed in a Form 8-K filed with the SEC (event date Nov. 11, signed Nov. 12) and in a press release issued the same day. The filing says the board accepted Huang’s resignation from all three roles. He does not stay on the board, and the filing mentions no severance, consulting or other terms.

Kress, 59, has been executive vice president and CFO since 2013 and keeps that job while serving as interim CEO. Nvidia says she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies, including Cisco and Microsoft, before joining.

The board also appointed Harvey C. Jones, 73, as chair, the first time Nvidia has had one. Jones has sat on the board since 1993 and previously served as CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys. Nvidia says the search for a permanent CEO will weigh internal and external candidates, and gives no timetable.

Neither document gives a reason for the resignation. Nvidia’s wording is “resigned”, not “ousted”; the ouster framing is Bloomberg’s.

Continuity promised, answers still missing

Jones said in the release that the company expects its operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption. Kress said the focus remains on serving customers, partners, developers and shareholders.

The release also confirms that Nvidia will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, Nov. 17, with a call at 2 p.m. PT. That will be the first time Kress, as interim CEO, faces analysts and investors.

A resignation after a governance probe, not before one

The departure follows an unusual week. On Nov. 8 the board said it was opening an independent investigation after reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, as we reported in our earlier coverage. A committee of independent directors oversees that work, and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was named to carry it out. At the time the board said it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia’s secrets had been compromised, and that Huang supported the review. Beijing denied the reports, according to AFP. Nvidia has not published the underlying reports, and the 8-K does not say whether the investigation led to the resignation or is continuing.

Markets reacted before the announcement. AFP reported that Nvidia shares fell nearly 9% early on Nov. 9, and later about 5.5%, as covered in our piece on the probe rattling AI stocks. Bloomberg’s headlines from Nov. 11 include a rare analyst downgrade from Baird that cited CEO uncertainty.

On governance, the structure changes in a visible way. Huang combined the CEO job and a board seat for the company’s whole history, and the board now has a separate chair and an interim CEO who is also the finance chief. How the independent investigation and the CEO search interact is not established by anything Nvidia has published.

Retail investors lean in

The Bloomberg story that prompted this report says, citing data from Vanda, that retail investors have been buying Nvidia aggressively since the exit, with a record level of open buying according to its headline. Details behind the Vanda figures are not public, so the claim is Bloomberg’s and Vanda’s, not Nvidia’s. A Stocktwits poll cited in separate coverage found at least 57% of retail traders saying they were buying the dip after the Nov. 9 drop, a smaller and less rigorous gauge.

For customers and partners building on Nvidia’s chips, the company’s message is that nothing changes in supply or roadmap. What the market is waiting for is who leads the company permanently, and what the board says on Nov. 17.