Jensen Huang exits Nvidia in a day: $800bn gone and a CFO now holds two jobs

Nvidia's board announced on Nov. 12, 2026 that Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive officer and board member, effective immediately. The company named Colette Kress, its executive vice president and chief financial officer, as interim CEO. Kress will keep the CFO role while she holds the top job. Harvey C. Jones, a former CEO of Synopsys who has sat on Nvidia's board since 1993, became the company's first-ever chair of the board.

The resignation followed reports of multiple extramarital relationships, including one with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive and Chinese citizen. U.S. officials believe Alice Huang is a Chinese spy, according to reporting on the matter; she is of no relation to Jensen Huang. China has denied that she was at the center of a honeypot operation. Megaspeed, a Singapore-based AI infrastructure company, reportedly bought $4.8 billion in Nvidia chips over two years and has been investigated by both the U.S. and Singapore. The Justice Department has taken over the federal investigation into the company.

Investors repriced the stock fast. Shares fell more than 11% after the board's announcement, and about 13% at the open. Roughly $800 billion in market value has come off since the reports emerged.

The governance response is the part that will outlast the headlines. A founder-CEO who ran Nvidia for 33 years left in a single day, and the board's answer was to hand the company to its CFO on an interim basis while she keeps her existing job, and to create a board chair for the first time in the company's history. That is a thin succession bench made visible in public.

Nvidia sits at the center of the global AI investment boom and the U.S.-China chip rivalry, so the stakes run past one executive's personal life. The company has not named a permanent CEO. The Justice Department investigation into Megaspeed continues, and what it finds will shape how Nvidia's chip sales and compliance are scrutinized from here.