San Francisco, November 12, 2026: Nvidia co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has stepped down, marking a major leadership change at the world’s most valuable chipmaker and raising questions about the future of the artificial intelligence industry he helped transform.
Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has been appointed interim CEO as the company begins its search for a permanent successor, Nvidia announced on Thursday. The company also named former Synopsys CEO and board member Harvey Jones as its first-ever chairman of the board.
Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and owns approximately 3.61 per cent of its shares, will also leave the company’s board.
Nvidia shares fell more than 10 per cent in premarket trading following the announcement, putting pressure on the broader market.
The 63-year-old executive’s position had come under mounting pressure in recent days following media reports about two alleged extramarital relationships, including one with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed, whom US authorities reportedly suspect of having links to Chinese intelligence.
Nvidia’s board met on Wednesday to consider Huang’s future, according to a person familiar with the matter. The meeting followed reports that he had also been involved in a relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of healthcare, who reportedly reported directly to him.
Huang’s departure has created uncertainty at the $4 trillion company and could have far-reaching implications for the AI ecosystem that Nvidia has helped finance through investments in cloud providers, suppliers and major AI research laboratories.
“The risk is not that Nvidia suddenly loses its technology roadmap … that roadmap is largely visible for the next several years. The risk is execution. Jensen has been the chief conductor of an extraordinarily complex system,” said Michael Feldman, portfolio manager at ClearBridge Investments.
“In a world with real bottlenecks, that coordination is a competitive advantage in itself,” he added.
Investor confidence in AI-related stocks has already faced pressure amid concerns over rising spending, increasing debt and uncertainty about whether the massive investments in artificial intelligence will generate sustainable returns.
Huang’s exit could also influence US chip export policy, given his efforts to preserve Nvidia’s access to the Chinese market and his close relationship with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Sunday that Huang had “done an amazing job for our country” and that the Nvidia chief had told him he was unaware that the Chinese woman with whom he had an affair was allegedly involved in espionage.
Nvidia was once best known for producing high-performance graphics processors for the gaming industry. However, the ability of its chips to perform multiple calculations simultaneously made them central to the development of artificial intelligence, turning the company into a strategic asset in the US-China technology rivalry.
The company’s extraordinary growth also transformed Huang into one of the technology industry’s most recognisable executives. His public appearances attracted large crowds, particularly in Taiwan and South Korea, where admirers often sought his autograph on books, posters and even personal belongings.
Scrutiny of Huang intensified following reports about his relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed. The two, who have been photographed together in Taiwan, Singapore and California, are not related.
US authorities have reportedly investigated Megaspeed over suspicions that it helped China obtain advanced AI chips restricted under American export controls. The company was also an Nvidia cloud partner with priority access to its processors. Beijing has denied that Alice Huang is a spy.
Earlier this month, Nvidia’s board launched an independent investigation, led by outside legal counsel and independent directors, into reports that Huang may have been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. At the time, the board expressed confidence in his leadership.
The controversy escalated on Wednesday when The New York Times reported that Huang had also been involved in an alleged relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare. The report said Powell was among the executives who reported to him.
