Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO; CFO Colette Kress named interim
Nvidia's board said on November 12, 2026 that Jensen Huang had stepped down as president, chief executive and director, effective immediately. According to TechCrunch, the company disclosed in an SEC filing that the board accepted the resignation on Wednesday. Colette Kress, who has been CFO since joining in September 2013, becomes interim CEO and keeps her finance post until a permanent successor is named. Harvey C. Jones was appointed the company's first-ever board chair. Huang had led Nvidia for 33 years.
Reports tie the departure to his personal relationships. TechCrunch reported that Huang admitted a romantic affair with an alleged Chinese spy. CBS News reported, citing investigators, that Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, gained access to 240,000 chips banned from export to China. Other reports describe a second relationship with a company executive who reports to him. Singapore has separately rejected reports that its authorities were investigating Alice Huang. Nvidia shares fell more than 13% in early trading before trimming some of the drop.
Nvidia agreed on September 2, 2026 to acquire Hugging Face. The filing sets the purchase price at about $11.9 billion payable to Hugging Face stockholders, plus up to about $1.0 billion in equity retention awards for employees who join Nvidia. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. Nvidia has also committed to keep the Hugging Face platform open and to support other silicon vendors.
Why it matters
For teams running workloads on Nvidia hardware, the company says customer commitments and the product roadmap should continue without interruption. Pricing, partner terms and roadmap timing could still shift once a permanent chief executive arrives, and one analyst cited by CNBC expects Kress to serve in the interim role for about a year. Teams renting Nvidia capacity from neoclouds should expect closer questions about where their chips are located and who ultimately uses them.
Investors and funders should track three items: the Hugging Face closing timeline, export enforcement affecting buyers in Singapore and Southeast Asia, and whether a new chief executive keeps Nvidia's public stance on open-weight models. Founders who depend on Hugging Face for model hosting or distribution should confirm their contingency plans now.
Key points
- 1Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia president, chief executive and director, effective immediately, on November 12, 2026.
- 2CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO and remains executive vice president and CFO until a permanent successor is named.
- 3Nvidia's Hugging Face purchase is about $11.9 billion to stockholders plus up to $1.0 billion in retention awards.
- 4The Hugging Face acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
- 5
