Nvidia announced today that Jensen Huang has resigned as president, CEO, and member of the board, effective immediately. The decision followed a late-night board meeting on Wednesday.
The company has appointed Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO while it conducts a search for a permanent successor, considering both internal and external candidates.
The resignation comes after a week of reporting about two extramarital affairs. The New York Times reported that Huang had a relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based cloud provider Megaspeed, a major Nvidia customer, and that U.S. intelligence officials believe she was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security to gather information on advanced AI chips.
In a weekend memo to employees, Huang admitted he had been "unfaithful" to his wife. Then on Wednesday the Times, citing people who worked at Nvidia, reported a second relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company's vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to him.
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New interim Nvidia CEO Colette Kress
Investigation and board response
Earlier in the week Nvidia's board said it had opened an independent investigation into the intelligence reports, adding that it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised and that it still had confidence in Huang.
Today's corporate statement did not mention the affairs. It thanked Huang for his "immeasurable contributions" after 33 years at the company he co-founded and announced the appointment of Harvey C. Jones, a former Synopsys CEO and executive chairman, as the board's first-ever chair.
Jones said the board has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team and expects the company's operations, customer commitments, and product roadmap to continue without interruption.
Nvidia's stock was down about 10% in premarket trading on Thursday. The company remains scheduled to report its latest quarterly earnings on Tuesday.
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