Nvidia announced Thursday that co-founder Jensen Huang had resigned as president, CEO and a director, putting Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress in charge on an interim basis as the company confronts a leadership transition and an independent investigation.
The company’s SEC filing says the board accepted Huang’s resignation Nov. 11, effective immediately. Nvidia publicly announced the transition Nov. 12. Kress will continue as CFO while serving as interim CEO.
A search for a permanent successor
The board will consider both internal and external candidates, according to Nvidia’s announcement. It did not name a permanent successor or give a deadline for completing the search.
Kress has been Nvidia’s CFO since 2013. The board also appointed longtime director Harvey Jones as chairman. Jones, who has served on the board since 1993, previously led chip-design software company Synopsys. The changes place an experienced finance executive in the interim operating role while adding a separate board chair.
The investigation and the reported allegations
On Nov. 8, Nvidia’s board announced an independent investigation into reports that Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort. At that time, the board said it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia’s secrets had been compromised. That statement was not a completed investigation’s finding.
In a Nov. 10 update, the independent directors said they had retained former acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim and law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct the inquiry.
Yahoo Finance’s live coverage reported Thursday that Reuters, citing two sources, had described another alleged affair involving Huang and a second Nvidia employee. Yahoo said Reuters did not identify the employee, was unable to reach her for comment and that Nvidia declined to comment. These remain reported allegations, distinct from the company’s confirmed leadership announcements.
What businesses should watch next
Nvidia’s board said it expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption. That is the company’s stated expectation, rather than an independently verified guarantee about future performance.
For businesses relying on Nvidia-based infrastructure, the practical questions now concern delivery commitments, product support and continuity of planning. A change at the top does not, by itself, establish that a customer’s hardware order or deployment schedule has changed.
The next scheduled company update is its fiscal third-quarter earnings report Nov. 17, with results expected at about 1:20 p.m. Pacific and a call at 2 p.m. The CEO search and the independent inquiry are separate processes; neither of the company statements cited here announces their completion.
File photograph: Jensen Huang at the K. T. Li Awards ceremony in Taiwan, Nov. 9, 2023. Credit: Taiwan Presidential Office / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Display may be cropped.
