# Jensen Huang steps down at Nvidia, and Colette Kress takes over

The co-founder resigns after extramarital relationships came to light, one of them with a woman the United States accuses of spying for China. The finance chief becomes interim CEO, and the company will have a board chair for the first time.

- Section: Business
- Published: November 13, 2026
- Address: https://ceoone.com.br/en/article/jensen-huang-steps-down-at-nvidia-and-colette-kress-takes-over
- Em português: https://ceoone.com.br/artigo/jensen-huang-deixa-o-comando-da-nvidia-e-colette-kress-assume.md

![Jensen Huang, with grey hair, glasses and a black leather jacket, looks to the side with a serious expression](https://pub-b80e49b2737940b3ab5d3f20d0578192.r2.dev/artigos/jensen-huang-deixa-o-comando-da-nvidia-e-colette-kress-assume-foto-horizontal.webp)

Photo: Anderseidesvik/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

## Key points

- Jensen Huang resigns as head of Nvidia after extramarital relationships came to light, one of them with a woman the United States accuses of spying for China.
- Finance chief Colette Kress becomes interim CEO, and Harvey C. Jones becomes the company's first board chair.
- The shares fall as much as 12% and close down 4.24%.

Nvidia announced on Thursday, November 12, the resignation of Jensen Huang, 63, as CEO. The departure follows revelations about the executive's extramarital relationships, one of them with a woman US authorities accuse of acting as a spy for China, which Beijing denies. Colette Kress, executive vice president and chief financial officer, takes over on an interim basis, and the company has hired recruiters to find a permanent successor from inside or outside the company.

The market reacted immediately. The shares, already down more than 8% before the open, fell as much as 12% after the announcement and closed the day down 4.24%. The Nasdaq lost 0.39%. The first company to reach US$ 5 trillion in market value, Nvidia was worth US$ 4.5 trillion last Friday, the 6th. After this week's slide, it is now worth around US$ 4 trillion.

Huang, a Taiwanese-born Californian, is one of Silicon Valley's longest-serving executives and one of the leading figures of the artificial intelligence boom. An engineer, he founded the company in 1993, holds 3.56% of its shares and has a fortune estimated at US$ 143 billion. Nvidia's chips were the foundation for training generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and now sit at the centre of the tech giants' race for infrastructure. He also gave up his board seat and, according to The New York Times, hired the law firm Paul Weiss, though it is not clear for what purpose.

## How the crisis unfolded

On Sunday, the 8th, Huang admitted to an extramarital relationship in a statement to employees. Without naming her, the text referred to his relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at the company Megaspeed, identified by the US government as a Chinese spy. The two share a surname but are not related. The relationship had been reported days earlier by The New York Times and the Financial Times and became the subject of an FBI investigation. Nvidia opened an internal inquiry, and shareholders sued both the CEO and the company.

At first, Huang had support from market allies. He was defended by investment groups, by Elon Musk and by President Donald Trump, who called him "an honourable man" and said he did not believe Huang knew his lover was a Chinese agent. Trump had been told about the relationship earlier but took no action.

The crisis deepened on Wednesday, the 11th, when The New York Times revealed another relationship, with Kimberly Powell, an executive reporting to the CEO. American newspapers began to speak of his exit, and the board met. Directors would have preferred him to stay but accepted a temporary leave or immediate resignation, which was confirmed hours later. On Thursday, after the announcement, Reuters revealed a third relationship, with another Nvidia employee whose name it did not disclose.

![White sign with Nvidia's green logo at the entrance to its headquarters, among trees and gardens, in Santa Clara](https://pub-b80e49b2737940b3ab5d3f20d0578192.r2.dev/artigos/jensen-huang-deixa-o-comando-da-nvidia-e-colette-kress-assume-sede.webp)

The entrance to Nvidia's headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Photo: Will Buckner/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Besides the change at the top, the chipmaker will have, for the first time in its history, a chair of the board of directors. The choice is Harvey C. Jones, a director since the company's founding and chief executive of Synopsys, a chip design software company, from 1987 to 1998. The release of results for the third quarter of fiscal 2027, which began in February, remains scheduled for Tuesday, the 17th. In its latest report, for the quarter ended in July, Nvidia posted revenue of US$ 96.2 billion, about 16 times the US$ 5.93 billion of the quarter ended in October 2022.

## Who is Colette Kress

Colette Kress, 59, will combine the finance role with that of interim CEO until the board picks a permanent successor. In a message to employees, she said she deeply believes in the company and called its staff "our greatest strength". Nvidia will hold an all-hands meeting on the 18th to discuss its future.

![Colette Kress, with long blonde hair and a dark jacket, smiles at an event](https://pub-b80e49b2737940b3ab5d3f20d0578192.r2.dev/artigos/jensen-huang-deixa-o-comando-da-nvidia-e-colette-kress-assume-kress.webp)

Colette Kress, Nvidia's chief financial officer since 2013, now interim CEO. Photo: SiliconANGLE theCUBE/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

She joined Nvidia in September 2013 and became a constant presence alongside Huang on earnings calls. In the fiscal year she joined, the company's revenue was US$ 4.13 billion; in fiscal 2026, it reached US$ 215.9 billion. Huang interviewed 22 candidates before hiring her, and it was her children, young and keen gamers, who encouraged her to accept. In her first week, she asked Huang how long he imagined her in the job. "I said: as long as we live, till death do us part," he recalled on a podcast.

Before that, Kress spent eight years in finance roles at Texas Instruments and worked at Microsoft from 1997 to 2010, where she became chief financial officer of the server and tools division. At Cisco, she was senior vice president and chief financial officer of the technology and enterprise operations area, overseeing financial strategy and business development, until 2013. She holds a degree in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. With more than 4.4 million shares in March, she is one of Nvidia's largest individual shareholders. The largest is Huang.

## Sources and editorial notes

- Based on reporting by Folha de S.Paulo, November 13, 2026 edition, C-level section, page A24: report by Helena Schuster, Gustavo Boldrini and Laura Intrieri (with The New York Times and Financial Times) and a Reuters dispatch.

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