Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Steps Down, Sending Shares Down 10 Percent

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is stepping down, and the company's shares fell more than 10 percent in premarket trading on the news. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while Nvidia searches for a permanent successor, the company said on Thursday. Nvidia also named former Synopsys CEO and board member Harvey Jones as its first-ever board chairman, and Huang will leave the board entirely.

The numbers explain why markets reacted so sharply. Huang co-founded Nvidia and owns about 3.61 percent of its shares, making him the company's fourth-largest investor. Nvidia is a $4 trillion company and the world's most valuable firm. Its stock slide on Thursday also weighed on the broader market.

How did the departure happen?

The exit caps a rapid escalation. Nvidia's board met on Wednesday to consider removing Huang, according to a person familiar with the matter. Earlier the same day, reports emerged that Huang — who is married — had an extramarital affair with a senior company executive who reported directly to him. The New York Times later identified that executive as Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare.

Earlier this month, the board had launched an investigation into whether Huang himself had been the target of a foreign intelligence operation. Independent directors led the probe with outside legal counsel. At that point, the board still expressed confidence in him. The takeaway: the board's posture shifted from backing Huang to forcing him out in a matter of days.

Who is Alice Huang?

The central figure in the intelligence angle is Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed. U.S. authorities have concluded she was a Chinese intelligence asset, according to the reports. Beijing has denied she is a spy.

She and Jensen Huang have been photographed together in Taiwan, Singapore and California. They are not related, despite sharing a surname. The 63-year-old CEO reportedly had an affair with her.

Washington has also investigated Megaspeed itself, according to media reports. Megaspeed is a coveted official Nvidia cloud partner with priority access to Nvidia's chips, and U.S. investigators suspect it helped China obtain advanced AI chips restricted under U.S. export controls. In short: the CEO's personal conduct intersected with one of the most sensitive questions in U.S. technology policy — whether restricted chips are reaching China.

What did Trump say?

President Donald Trump weighed in on Sunday. He said Huang had "done an amazing job for our country," and that the Nvidia chief told him he had no idea the Chinese woman he had an affair with was a spy.

Huang's ties to Trump matter here. His departure could have far-reaching consequences for U.S. chip export policy, given his push to preserve Nvidia's access to the Chinese market and his close relationship with the president. Nvidia's position in the U.S.-China race to dominate AI has made its chips a strategic prize, and Huang personally shaped how the company navigated that contest.

Why does one CEO's exit shake the AI industry?

For years, Nvidia was best known to gamers chasing top-tier graphics cards. The mechanism behind its rise is simple to state: its chips can perform many calculations simultaneously. That property turned them into the oil of the AI boom, powering the training and running of large AI systems — and it made Nvidia the world's most valuable company.

Huang became the industry's biggest champion and something of a rock-star CEO. Fans in Taiwan and South Korea mob him and ask him to sign books, posters and sometimes even their bodies. His pull is such that stocks moved at his mere mention of company names at events.

His influence ran deeper than fame, though. He helped bankroll the AI ecosystem by pouring Nvidia's swelling cash pile back into cloud providers, suppliers and the industry's biggest labs. His exit clouds that flywheel — and it lands at a fragile moment. Investor sentiment toward AI stocks was already shaky, with soaring cash burn and rising debt at traditionally cash-rich tech giants fueling doubts over whether the AI boom will pay off.

The stakes, in plain terms: Nvidia's chips underpin AI computing, Huang financed much of the ecosystem built on top of them, and both the company and that ecosystem now face a leadership vacuum.

What happens next at Nvidia?

Kress, the CFO, runs the company in the interim while the search for a permanent successor proceeds. Jones, the new chairman, takes on a role the company has never had before — a governance signal at a moment when the board has just forced out its founder.

Huang exits as the company's fourth-largest investor with his roughly 3.61 percent stake, but with no role on the board. What the succession settles — and whether the export-policy and intelligence questions follow the company rather than the man — will shape both Nvidia and the wider AI market in the months ahead.

Key facts at a glance

• Nvidia shares fell more than 10 percent in premarket trading after the announcement.
• CFO Colette Kress becomes interim CEO; former Synopsys CEO Harvey Jones becomes Nvidia's first board chairman.
• Huang co-founded Nvidia and holds about 3.61 percent of its shares — the fourth-largest stake.
• The board met Wednesday to consider removing him after reports of affairs with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset and with VP of healthcare Kimberly Powell.
• Nvidia is a $4 trillion company and the world's most valuable firm.