Well, that escalated fast. Three days ago it was a board investigation. This morning Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia’s CEO, president, and director, effective immediately — ending a 33-year run at the company he co-founded.
The short version: the board opened an investigation on Sunday into whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, after reports of an affair with a woman US officials suspect of spying for China. Then the NYT reported a second affair, this one with an Nvidia executive who reports to him. Huang admitted Sunday he’d been unfaithful, without naming anyone. The board met Wednesday night, and by Thursday morning he was gone. Nvidia’s own announcement doesn’t actually give a reason for the departure, for what that’s worth.
CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement, and longtime director Harvey Jones is now the board’s first-ever chair. The stock fell hard on the news — down more than 10% pre-market — and Nvidia reports earnings next Tuesday, which should be interesting, to say the least.
Honestly the part I keep coming back to is the succession problem. Huang famously didn’t believe in succession planning — 60 direct reports, no obvious heir — and now one of the most valuable companies on earth is holding open auditions days before earnings. Who even takes that job? Kress is the obvious steady hand, Ian Buck’s name is floating around, and yes, Trump already suggested Tim Cook, because of course he did.
Here’s the writeup: Nvidia's Jensen Huang resigns, chipmaker names CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO | TechCrunch
What do you all think — is this a governance story, a national security story, or just a very public personal downfall that happened to hit the biggest company in AI?
