Jensen Huang has resigned as Nvidia’s president, chief executive officer and director, according to the company’s Form 8-K, ending a three-decade run at the helm of the chipmaker that defined the AI era. CFO Colette Kress has been named interim CEO while the board weighs a successor. The Jensen Huang resignation lands as Nvidia’s board was already reported to be preparing for leadership change amid the China scandal that rocked the AI chip giant this month.
What the Jensen Huang resignation says
The filing confirms Huang’s departure in full – president, CEO and director – rather than a founder stepping back into a chairman’s chair. The resignation follows days of turbulence: on November 12, reports surfaced that the board was preparing to oust Huang, and markets promptly treated the news as a risk-off signal that spilled into crypto and other rate-sensitive assets.
Who is running Nvidia now?
Kress, Nvidia’s CFO, takes the interim helm – the finance chief becoming the caretaker CEO is a classic continuity play, designed to reassure customers and regulators while the board decides. That board is reportedly considering Arm CEO Rene Haas as a permanent successor, though no executive search firm has been engaged yet, suggesting the process is still at the conversation stage.
What shareholders – and 108,000 petitioners – want
Major holders are already weighing in. Altimeter Capital and Atreides Management, together holding roughly $2.1 billion of Nvidia stock, are urging a slow, measured and deliberate CEO search that keeps Huang’s return on the table. Meanwhile, a “Stand with Jensen” petition demanding his reinstatement topped 108,000 signatures by Saturday afternoon – a reminder that in the AI era, founder sentiment is now crowdsourced in real time.
The stakes extend beyond semiconductors. Nvidia sits at the center of the data-center buildout that AI demand depends on, and the succession question affects everything from GPU supply commitments to the governance drama we covered earlier this week. For now the company says Kress is interim CEO; for shareholders, the operative questions are simple: how long is interim, and does the board really leave the founder’s return on the table?
Sources: Nvidia Form 8-K, CNBC, AI Weekly.
