NVIDIA Board Says CEO Search Hasn't Started: No Firm, No Candidates Yet

NVIDIA's board said on November 13, 2026, that it is still selecting a search firm to find a permanent CEO and has not formally engaged any potential candidates, CNBC reported. The statement came one day after the most abrupt leadership change in the company's recent history. And it landed directly on top of a competing report about who might actually get the job.

The stakes are easy to state in one number: NVIDIA's market capitalization fell below $4 trillion on November 13 as shares dropped more than 2 percent. Investors are pricing in uncertainty at the company supplying the computing backbone of the AI industry, at the exact moment its leadership is in flux.

What did the board actually say?

The board's statement was narrow and deliberate. "Any speculation regarding individual candidates, whether internal or external, is premature."

That quote carries the whole story. The board denies formally engaging candidates. But the wording addresses formal engagement specifically. It leaves open a distinction between that stage and any informal approach — a gap wide enough for a competing report to drive through on the same day.

The Financial Times reported on November 13 that the board had approached Arm CEO Rene Haas, citing people familiar with the matter. Neither NVIDIA nor Arm has confirmed an approach within the board's official framing. The board's denial, in other words, does not rule out what the FT described.

Haas is not a stranger to NVIDIA. He joined SoftBank-backed Arm in 2013 after seven years at NVIDIA, where his roles included vice president of the computing-products business. That history makes the report plausible to industry observers. It also makes the board's choice of words — "premature" rather than "false" — notable.

The permanent search will consider both internal and external candidates, the company has said.

Who is running NVIDIA right now?

Colette Kress is serving as interim CEO while retaining her executive vice president and CFO duties, a dual role she agreed to hold until a permanent successor is named. She joined NVIDIA in September 2013 after almost 25 years in technology-finance roles, including at Cisco and Microsoft.

Kress did not wait to begin. She held her first meeting as interim CEO on the afternoon of November 12 with senior executives at NVIDIA's Santa Clara, California, headquarters, according to a person familiar with the internal details. That meeting took place hours after the announcement that triggered the transition.

The announcement itself came on November 12, 2026: Jensen Huang had resigned as president, CEO and a board member, effective immediately. There was no transition period, no lingering title, no gradual handover. The person who built NVIDIA into the company it is today left the building the same day the news broke.

Alongside the resignation, Harvey C. Jones was appointed as the board's first-ever chair — a governance structure that did not exist at NVIDIA before this week.

Why the dual role matters

Kress's position puts the executive overseeing NVIDIA's finances at the center of the company while the board organizes the permanent search. She holds the budget, the earnings calls and the corner office simultaneously.

She has already framed her priorities. Kress said NVIDIA would continue advancing its accelerated-computing and AI work, with its focus remaining on customers, partners, developers and shareholders. It is a continuity message, and it is aimed at exactly the audiences — customers and investors — most likely to wobble during a leadership vacuum.

Jones reinforced the same theme. He said the board expected operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption under Kress and the leadership team. The board is promising, in effect, that nothing changes while everything about the corner office is unresolved.

How did the market react?

NVIDIA shares fell more than 2 percent on November 13. The decline moved the company's market capitalization below $4 trillion.

The drop came as investors assessed two things at once: Huang's departure and the uncertainty of the transition timeline. The board has not named a search firm. It has not formally engaged a candidate. It has not offered a deadline. Every element of the succession process that investors could anchor to a date remains open.

That is the tension underneath this week's statements. The board says speculation is premature. The market's view is that the succession question is the single largest variable now attached to the stock.

What happens on November 17?

The next scheduled public checkpoint is close. Third-quarter fiscal 2027 results remain set for November 17, 2026, at approximately 1:20 p.m. Pacific Time, with the earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific Time.

That release will arrive under unusual conditions:

• Kress will hold both the interim CEO and CFO roles.
• The board will still be selecting the firm that will support the permanent search.
• No formal candidate engagement will have occurred, per the board's own statement.
• Reports of an approach to Rene Haas will remain in circulation without confirmation.

The earnings call will be the first time Kress faces investors and analysts in her expanded role. It will also be the first public test of the board's continuity promise against real numbers and real questions.

The so-what

The immediate business issue is whether the existing leadership team can deliver the operational and product-roadmap continuity the board has promised while the permanent succession remains unresolved. Everything the board has said this week — the "premature" statement, Jones's no-interruption pledge, Kress's focus list — is a bet that it can.

The November 17 results will show, in part, whether that bet holds before the search for Huang's successor has even formally begun.