Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Resigns; Colette Kress Interim

Nvidia’s board accepted Jensen Huang’s resignation as president, chief executive and a member of the board on 11 November 2026, effective immediately. The company made the change public on 12 November in a Newsroom release and a Form 8-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Neither the release nor the 8-K gives a reason for the resignation.

Colette M. Kress, who is 59 and has been executive vice president and chief financial officer since she joined the company in September 2013, has been appointed interim chief executive. She will keep the finance role while the board searches for a permanent successor and, the company says, will consider internal and external candidates. The same day’s decisions include the appointment of Harvey C. Jones, who is 73 and has been a director since 1993, as Nvidia’s first-ever chair of the board.

The 8-K records the accepted resignation under Huang’s legal name, Jen-Hsun Huang. Kress signed that filing on 12 November as interim chief executive, executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Kress keeps the finance job as the search begins

The Newsroom release says that during her tenure Kress “has led the company’s finance organization and has played a key role in NVIDIA’s growth and evolution.” Before Nvidia, it says, she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies, including Cisco and Microsoft. Those are the company’s descriptions of her record, not an independent assessment of it.

Jones has been managing partner of Square Wave Ventures, a private family office, since 2004, the 8-K says, and has more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur, high technology executive and venture investor. The release adds that he previously served as chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys. Nvidia had not previously had a chair of the board; the release calls him the “first-ever Chair of the Board.”

“The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption,” Jones said.

“I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,” Kress said.

The company also said: “The Board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry.”

The earlier inquiry is not given as a cause

The resignation was accepted three days after Nvidia’s board opened an independent inquiry. In an 8 November statement, the board said it was initiating that investigation “in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort,” and that a committee of independent directors, assisted by outside independent counsel, would oversee it. Huang published a staff email the same day, “A Message to Our Company”, saying he would cooperate. On 10 November the independent directors said they had retained former acting US attorney Joon H. Kim and his firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, to conduct the investigation.

Today’s 8-K and Newsroom release do not mention that inquiry. They also do not present it, or any other matter, as the reason for the resignation. The company has not said whether the review is continuing, or whether it has reached any conclusion.

Jones’s remark about uninterrupted operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap is an expectation from the new chair, not a result that can already be checked. Public work still on Nvidia’s books includes a recent plan with Rebellions and SK Telecom to build NVLink Fusion systems and a promised $3 billion investment in Meta’s share sale as the Muse partnership grows.

Third-quarter results stay on 17 November

Nvidia will report its third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, 17 November, at approximately 1:20pm Pacific Time (9:20pm GMT, Europe/London), as previously scheduled, followed by its earnings call at 2pm Pacific Time (10pm GMT, Europe/London).

A completed resignation, and an unexplained gap

The official record is unusually terse for the departure of Nvidia’s long-serving chief executive. The 8-K does three things and no more: it records that the board accepted a resignation, effective immediately; it appoints the sitting chief financial officer as interim chief executive while she remains CFO; and it creates a board chair role that the company says it had not filled before. It does not say why Huang left, whether he was asked to resign, what discussions preceded the 11 November meeting, or what, if anything, the independent investigation has found.

Those silences should be read as silences, not as answers. The timing sits next to an inquiry opened on 8 November and to the retention of outside counsel on 10 November, but adjacency is not the same as a stated cause. Treating the resignation as the inquiry’s conclusion, or as a verdict on the reporting that prompted it, would go beyond what Nvidia has filed. The same caution runs the other way: the absence of a stated reason is not evidence that the two events are unrelated. It is simply not a fact the company has offered.

The interim arrangement concentrates two of the most senior jobs in one person. That is a familiar emergency design, and it is the design the board has chosen, but it is not a settled succession. Because the search will consider internal and external candidates, Kress is, on the official wording, a caretaker who might or might not become the permanent chief executive. Nothing in the filing ranks her against any other candidate.

Jones’s assurance that operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap should continue is the board’s present position. Whether those relationships move smoothly will be tested in practice, starting with the results call on 17 November and, later, with the name the board eventually puts on the permanent job. A third open question is the inquiry now in the hands of Mr Kim and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Today’s paperwork does not update it.

The facts still to come are a reason, if the company ever gives one; the outcome of the search for a permanent chief executive; and any later word on that investigation. Until then, the official record is a resignation accepted, an interim appointment, a first board chair, and a results date that has not moved.

Sources

1. Nvidia Newsroom, “NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition,” 12 November 2026. https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-ceo-transition
2. NVIDIA Corporation, Form 8-K, Item 5.02, period of report 11 November 2026, filed 12 November 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581026000082/nvda-20261111.htm
3. Nvidia Board of Directors, “Statement From NVIDIA Board of Directors,” 8 November 2026. https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/statement-from-nvidia-board-of-directors
4. Jensen Huang, “A Message to Our Company,” Nvidia Newsroom, 8 November 2026. https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/a-message-to-our-company
5. Independent members of the Nvidia board, “Statement From the Independent Members of the NVIDIA Board,” 10 November 2026. https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/statement-from-the-independent-members-of-the-nvidia-board

Related stories

Nvidia Board Opens Independent Inquiry After Intelligence Reports is the TSN account of the inquiry opened three days before this resignation was accepted; today’s filings do not present that review as the reason Huang left.

Also relevant:

• NVIDIA, Rebellions and SKT Plan NVLink Fusion Systems
• NVIDIA to Invest $3bn in Meta’s Share Sale as Muse Partnership Grows