Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO after 33 years, ending reign that defined the AI era

Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive, and board member of Nvidia on Thursday, ending a 33-year tenure that transformed a scrappy graphics chip startup into the most consequential company in the artificial intelligence economy. The board accepted his resignation effective immediately, Nvidia said in a regulatory filing, and named chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim CEO while it considers internal and external candidates for a permanent replacement.

Nvidia shares fell more than 10% in pre-market trading Thursday and opened down nearly 12%, before partially recovering to close down 4.3% — wiping more than $180 billion off the company's value on the day and roughly $490 billion for the week, according to The Guardian. The company's market capitalization, which had reached $5.88 trillion at its peak, stood at approximately $4 trillion by Thursday's close.

The resignation ends one of the most turbulent fortnights in corporate history. Huang's downfall began on November 6, when The New York Times and Financial Times reported that he had been in a relationship with Alice Huang — a Chinese citizen and head of Singapore-based data center firm Megaspeed, whom U.S. intelligence officials believed may have been working as an agent for China's Ministry of State Security. The Chinese government has rejected those claims. Huang and Alice Huang, who are not related, were spotted together publicly at least twice, in June 2024 and May 2025, according to Wired.

At first, the board declared it had 'confidence' in Huang and 'no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised.' President Trump called him 'an honorable guy.' Betting markets suggested he would survive. Then on November 11, the New York Times disclosed a second affair — this one involving Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to Huang and was reportedly captured on video being affectionate with him at a hotel during a company conference in March. The board convened Wednesday night to weigh his future. By Thursday morning, he was gone.

Jensen's contributions to Nvidia are profound. Nvidia is one of the most consequential technology companies in the world. The board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry.— Nvidia Board of Directors

The board's statement made no mention of the espionage allegations or the personal conduct revelations. It also announced the appointment of Harvey C. Jones as Nvidia's first-ever board chair. In a separate statement, Jones said the board anticipates 'the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption,' according to CNN.

After the resignation was announced, Reuters reported a third alleged affair — with another Nvidia employee whose name was not disclosed — citing two people familiar with the matter.

On Sunday, before the second affair became public, Huang sent an email to the entire company in which he acknowledged his relationship with Alice Huang, offered apologies to his family and Nvidia employees, and said he would cooperate with the internal investigation. He has been married to his wife, Lori Huang, since 1985; both of the couple's children work at the company, according to Wired.

The scale of what Huang leaves behind is difficult to overstate. Nvidia's revenue rose more than 1,500% under his leadership to $96.22 billion as of the company's second quarter of fiscal 2027, from $5.93 billion in Q3 2023, just before the ChatGPT moment ignited the AI boom. In that same period, net income climbed nearly 88-fold, reaching $59.69 billion compared with $680 million, according to TechCrunch. Nvidia's share price rose more than 1,450% from roughly $15 before ChatGPT's launch to an all-time high of $243. As of September 2026, the company controlled approximately 90% of the GPU market, according to Wired.

Nvidia's financial tentacles extend far beyond chip sales. As of the end of its second quarter, the company reported $99 billion worth of investments and $25 billion in additional commitments, plus $36 billion in cloud service commitments. It has invested $30 billion in OpenAI, $10 billion in Anthropic, $2 billion in CoreWeave, $2 billion in Nebius, and $3.5 billion in MediaTek. Nvidia has additionally committed to backing up to $105 billion in credit guarantees for an OpenAI data center campus in Ohio, according to TechCrunch. The ripple effects were immediate: CoreWeave shares fell about 9% Thursday, Nebius dropped roughly 16%, and IREN fell 6.6%.

This is no ordinary CEO. This is no ordinary company. This is no ordinary sector. This is no ordinary time.— Mohamed El-Erian, economist

Kress, who has served as Nvidia's CFO for more than a decade, will continue in that role simultaneously while acting as interim CEO. Among the internal candidates being discussed are Kress herself and Ian Buck, who manages Nvidia's AI hardware and software products. According to The Guardian, Huang's two children, Madison and Spencer, are employed at Nvidia but are in their mid-30s and considered relatively inexperienced. External names floated include Rene Haas, CEO of UK-based chipmaker Arm Holdings, and Lisa Su, CEO of AMD.

Trump, who had initially defended Huang, moved quickly Thursday to weigh in on the succession, posting on social media that Apple's former chief executive Tim Cook — who stepped down as Apple CEO in September but retains a senior executive role — should take the job. 'NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple,' Trump wrote. 'A Legend replaces a Legend!'

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, reportedly sketching out their vision for the company at a Denny's diner. The company's early years were marked by struggle and layoffs, but it eventually developed a GPU design that became the standard for graphics processing. The pivot toward AI came in 2012, when a neural network called AlexNet won a high-profile computer vision prize, convincing Huang that AI was the future. He has repeatedly called AlexNet a 'Big Bang'-like event for computing, according to Wired.

Huang ran Nvidia with an unusually tight grip, managing approximately 60 direct reports — a structure that emphasized personal control but now raises questions about institutional resilience. Saxo UK analyst Neil Wilson told The Guardian that Huang's grasp of Nvidia's products was essentially singular: 'His technical knowledge and understanding of every last bit of product is basically unique and impossible to replicate.' Senior U.S. tech analyst Dan Ives offered a more optimistic assessment, arguing that the board had done what 'it needed to do, which is rip off the Band-Aid and take Nvidia into its next chapter without him.'

According to a source familiar with the matter cited by Wired, Huang's business ties to Megaspeed — where Alice Huang previously held a senior position — and his affair with a direct report were likely more consequential to the board's decision than the espionage allegations. Separately, Wired reported Monday that Huang had begun working with a crisis PR firm in 2024 to manage his personal communications, with those consultants looped into all press inquiries involving him starting in October 2025 — timing that aligned with a New York Times report that the U.S. Commerce Department was investigating whether Megaspeed was helping Chinese companies circumvent American export controls. After Nvidia's general counsel made inquiries about the probe, it was reportedly shut down and handed off to the Justice Department.

Holding more than 870 million shares, or roughly 3.6% of the company, Huang had a net worth of $145 billion on Thursday morning, placing him 13th on the global wealth rankings, according to Bloomberg figures cited by The Guardian. He has agreed to testify before investigators, according to The Guardian.

Why it matters — Nvidia's chips, investments, and financial guarantees underpin the entire global AI buildout — from OpenAI to cloud data centers — and the sudden removal of the founder who personally drove that ecosystem creates immediate uncertainty for trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure and the companies that depend on it.

Sources differ on Whether Alice Huang worked for Chinese intelligence: U.S. officials believe she is an asset of China's Ministry of State Security (wired.com) vs The Chinese government has rejected all claims that Alice Huang was a spy (wired.com)

Reported by axios.com, wired.com, reuters.com, techcrunch.com, cnn.com, theguardian.com