Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO after 33 years, and CFO Colette Kress steps in

Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and ran it for its entire history, has resigned as chief executive. Nvidia's board said on Thursday that Huang has stepped down as president and CEO and given up his board seat, effective immediately. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is running the company on an interim basis while the board looks for a permanent replacement.

How it happened

According to The Register, Nvidia disclosed in a Form 8-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the board accepted Huang's resignation on November 11. The board's public announcement followed on Thursday, November 12.

The departure ends a fast-moving few weeks. The Register reports that allegations first surfaced on October 29, when the New York Times reported that US intelligence believed a Chinese businesswoman who worked for a Singapore-based Nvidia customer had been recruited to gather information about the company for Beijing. China has rejected the spying allegations as a smear, The Register notes.

Engadget reports that the board then opened an investigation after Huang admitted to an affair with that person. At the time, the board said it had "no reason to believe" national security or company secrets were compromised. Huang apologized to staff in a memo, according to Engadget. This week, the New York Times reported a second relationship, with an Nvidia executive who reported to him, according to both outlets. President Trump has said the FBI is also investigating, Engadget reports. None of the outlets report any charges against Huang.

The Register says Nvidia shares fell 4.3% on November 9 and a further 5.5% the next day, a drop worth around $430 billion in market value.

Who is running Nvidia now

Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013 and is a familiar face to investors from the company's earnings calls. TechCrunch reports she previously spent three years as a finance chief at Cisco and 13 years at Microsoft, including four as CFO of its Server and Tools business. Engadget says she keeps her CFO role while serving as interim CEO.

The board also named its first-ever chair: Harvey Jones, the former CEO and executive chairman of chip-design software company Synopsys. According to Engadget, Jones said the board has "full confidence" in Kress and expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption. In a statement reported by TechCrunch, Kress said her focus is on serving customers, partners, developers and shareholders.

TechCrunch reports that Nvidia had no succession plan in place, and none of the sources give a timeline for the CEO search.

Congress wants answers

Separately, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Brian Mast said on Thursday that Huang has agreed to testify behind closed doors, TechCrunch reports, citing Bloomberg and NBC News. Mast, along with the chairs of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Intelligence Committee, had asked Huang to appear in a November 4 letter, and lawmakers had threatened a subpoena. The testimony is expected before Thanksgiving and will be recorded on video and transcribed, according to Mast.

Why it matters

Few companies are as tied to one founder as Nvidia was to Huang. Under him it went from a maker of 3D graphics chips to the main supplier of the processors that train and run today's AI models, with a peak valuation of more than $5.5 trillion earlier this year, according to The Register. Nearly every large AI lab and cloud provider depends on its hardware and software, so a leadership vacuum there matters well beyond Nvidia's shareholders.

The near-term test is Nvidia's quarterly results, which TechCrunch says are due on Tuesday. That call will be the first chance for investors and customers to hear how the company plans to run without Huang. Washington is a second pressure point: Mast said he and Huang had been "very at odds" over export controls, TechCrunch reports. The Register quotes one analyst who said the interim arrangement does not settle the stock, because the investigations are still open.

On paper, the product side shouldn't change right away: the board says it expects customer commitments and the roadmap to continue as planned. The bigger questions — who leads next, and what the congressional and FBI inquiries find — are still open.