Former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (l) and current interim CEO Colette Kress|Anderseidesvik; SiliconANGLE theCUBE|CC BY-SA 4.0; CC BY 3.0
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned yesterday after reports of affairs with two employees emerged just days after he acknowledged a separate romantic relationship with a suspected Chinese spy.
Who is the new CEO?
The US chipmaker immediately moved to appoint 59-year-old CFO Colette Kress—who joined the company in 2013—as interim CEO while continuing the search for a permanent replacement for Huang, who led Nvidia for 33 years.
Kress previously worked in finance roles at Texas Instruments, Microsoft, and Cisco and became a billionaire in 2025.
The challenge will be whether a finance executive can sustain the technological ambition and risk-taking that propelled Nvidia into a $4 trillion AI giant under Huang.
Since founding Nvidia in 1993, Huang, 63, has built it into the world's dominant supplier of AI chips, commanding roughly 80% of the market.
With no succession plan reportedly in place, Huang managed an unusually broad span of control, overseeing 60 direct reports. He built deep connections with AI powerhouses like OpenAI and Anthropic early on and remains close friends with President Donald Trump.
List of successors
Trump expressed sadness over Huang’s resignation and suggested former Apple CEO Tim Cook as his potential replacement. Other potential successors reportedly under consideration by Nvidia’s board include company veteran Ian Buck, Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and AMD CEO Lisa Su.
Nvidia stock fell as much as 14% before recovering to close 4.3% lower at $166.19 on Thursday. It has lost over $180 billion in market value.
The decline could shake up AI financing, with Nvidia having become something of a central bank for the global AI race. Beyond its multibillion-dollar stakes in AI companies, the chipmaker has also guaranteed $100 billion in data center leases.
The scandal is also raising questions for the commerce secretary. Howard Lutnick has agreed to testify before Congress amid mounting scrutiny over his reported reluctance to designate Megaspeed a national security threat and restrict its access to advanced AI chips.
What about China?
Huang shaped American AI policy and lobbied for Chinese chip exports. It remains to be seen how the move will affect the Southeast Asian nation.
The company is set to report its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday.