Nvidia Stock Tumbles and Colette Kress Named Interim CEO After Huang Exit
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned effective immediately following scrutiny over personal relationships, with CFO Colette Kress stepping in as interim CEO.
Nvidia Stock Tumbles and Colette Kress Named Interim CEO After Huang Exit
Nvidia’s market capitalisation has dropped by about USD500 billion since Friday’s close following the ouster of CEO and founder Jensen Huang, whose departure ends a leadership era that defined the modern artificial intelligence boom. Nvidia shares plunged 14% on Thursday after the announcement, with the stock poised for its sixth straight weekly drop, marking its longest slump since 2012. The shares have been dragged down by broad concerns about the AI buildout, particularly after the midterm elections, which resulted in sweeping victories for Democrats.
From Soap Opera to Ouster
The 63-year-old executive resigned effective immediately on Thursday, November 12, 2026, after a nearly two weeks of controversy that featured reported affairs, an alleged Chinese spy and GPU smuggler, and a second relationship with a direct report. For Nvidia’s board, there was no question Huang had to go, proving too big a liability to retain in any capacity. He was considered too toxic even for a demotion from CEO to chairman, a vantage point that would have retained Huang as the face of the company even if he could no longer be trusted to run it.
The timeline of the crisis unfolded rapidly:
- Late 2023: Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman blasts rival Nvidia for supplying GPUs to China in spite of US export controls, calling the behavior un-American and likening the graphics titan to an AI arms dealer.
- Early last year: The Trump administration's short-lived blockade of H20 sales costs the company some $10.5 billion, leading Huang to spend much of 2025 lobbying the administration to reverse export bans on older Hopper generation GPUs to China, an endeavor that ultimately proved successful.
- November 8, 2026: Jensen Huang issues a public apology to employees for being unfaithful to his wife.
- November 11, 2026: Nvidia’s board meets for hours to deliberate on Huang’s future as the CEO fights to retain his role.
- November 12, 2026: Nvidia officially announces Huang’s resignation, the appointment of Colette Kress as interim CEO, and the naming of Harvey C. Jones as board chairman.
Minotaur Capital co-founder Thomas Rice noted to Capital Brief that he thought Huang could stay on before the second relationship broke, saying, But then, oh, a second affair. Is there a third, and a fourth?
For investors, the timing proved critical. Wilson Asset Management portfolio manager William Liu told Capital Brief that his fund had fortuitously sold its entire position in Nvidia just last week.
The Huang saga burst into public view on Sunday, when the CEO apologized for being unfaithful to his wife. That followed reports that he'd had an affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence suspects is a spy. Pressure intensified late Wednesday after The New York Times reported a second affair, this one with an employee named Kimberly Powell.
An Identity Crisis and Leadership Vacuum
Replacing Huang presents an enormous challenge because the GPU slinger has no clear successor after leading the company for more than three decades. While the firm has no shortage of brilliant engineers, finding executives capable of wrangling one of the biggest and most influential brands in the world is difficult.
Meanwhile, Colette Kress, a 13-year company veteran and chief financial officer who kept Jensen’s ambitions grounded for more than a decade, has taken the reins as interim CEO, and the board has appointed former Synopsys CEO Harvey C. Jones as the company’s first-ever chairman to oversee the search for a permanent leader. Nvidia hasn't announced a succession plan and said the board is considering internal and external candidates.
She's the only one internally that has this significant respect. She's more than just a CFO. I'd almost view her as more of a COO.
Dan Ives, Yorkville Ives & Co. analyst, via CNBC
Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013, after holding finance roles at Cisco, Microsoft and Texas Instruments. At Nvidia, Kress has been the other big voice on earnings calls, reporting the company's results and taking questions alongside Huang. Her LinkedIn profile lists her location as Saratoga, California, a wealthy city 16 miles south of Nvidia's Santa Clara headquarters, and she was recognized in May as one of Fortune's most powerful women in business.
Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993, was known for running the company with no clear second-in-command, personally deciding which projects are a priority and emailing engineers about details. But when it came to Kress, Jensen didn't do anything without her,
Dan Ives said, describing her as a Swiss Army knife for Nvidia. Anything strategically: customers, partners, technology. She was involved.
Nearly a dozen Nvidia insiders and former Kress co-workers spoke to CNBC to describe her as savvy, knowledgeable, thoughtful and clear-headed. Daniel Newman, CEO of Futurum Group, wrote in a message to CNBC that Kress deeply understands the business and has shown fierce loyalty to the company.
NVIDIA's strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,
Kress said in Thursday's statement. We will continue advancing the work that has made NVIDIA a leader in accelerated computing and AI, and execute on the opportunities ahead. Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders.
Kress is stepping in at a moment of crisis, operating in the wake of a founder synonymous with the brand who pioneered the artificial intelligence chip industry. According to Dan Ives, Kress will likely serve for about a year as interim CEO, but the permanent replacement will come from outside the company because you need someone that's been on the global stage,
given the importance of the company not just in the U.S. tech industry but the global economy.
Beyond the executive suite, the fallout threatens Nvidia’s relationships and government standing. The board retained the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct an independent investigation, led by former acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, following reports detailing a romantic relationship between Huang and Alice Huang, the chief executive of Singapore-based Megaspeed whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly identified as a recruit for China’s Ministry of State Security. A second relationship involving Nvidia Vice President Kimberly Powell was also reported.
Political repercussions have been swift. Republican lawmakers, including Representatives Brian Mast, John Moolenaar, and Rick Crawford, have demanded a closed-door briefing on Huang’s interactions with Alice Huang to assess potential national security risks. Nvidia has stated it has no reason to believe proprietary information was compromised, but the investigation into potential espionage or unauthorized disclosure remains a significant overhang. These concerns echo past criticism from U.S. government officials, including former commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, for attempting to circumvent export controls to sell chips to China. Analysts note that Huang's ongoing efforts to sell chips to China are undermined by his admission of an affair with a woman accused of moonlighting as a Chinese spy and helping to smuggle GPUs into the country.
Market Shakes and Rival Openings
Nvidia’s stock lost about 25% of its value in the few days after news about Huang started breaking, only recovering slightly after his ouster. Nvidia shares tumbled at the opening bell on Thursday, with reports noting declines of more than 12% in early trading, while the broader AI ecosystem faced a wave of sell-offs.
Competitors are poised to capitalize on the disruption. AMD is viewed as an obvious winner, with its GPU tech surpassing Nvidia's on paper and boasting an unblemished relationship serving the U.S. government, including powering two of the Department of Energy’s three largest and most sensitive supercomputers. Hyperscalers with sufficient cash flow, such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, may also seek to insulate themselves by investing more heavily in homegrown silicon. Amid a surge in custom AI chips from Broadcom, Marvel, and others, Nvidia’s main advantage was often simply being considered a safe bet, an image now tarnished by bad optics.
The market's reaction also reflects deeper worries about the AI financing merry-go-round bubble, where Nvidia invests in or guarantees infrastructure for startups that purchase its chips. Completed investments, such as Nvidia’s $30 billion in OpenAI or its $2 billion stake in CoreWeave, remain intact, but future commitments and discretionary project financing face new uncertainty.
The immediate test arrives on November 17, when Nvidia is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings with expected revenue of $109.2 billion. Investors and partners will be watching the call for specific details on how the new leadership team plans to manage cloud hyperscalers and maintain financial commitments previously tied directly to Huang’s personal vision.
Updated 2 times since publication; last update 14 November 2026, 05:53.
