Jensen Huang Resigns As CEO Of Chipmaker NVIDIA

Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang has stepped down as president, chief executive officer and board member with immediate effect, ending his 33-year tenure as the company’s chief executive, following a turbulent week.

Nvidia has appointed chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive officer. The board will consider internal and external candidates for a permanent successor.

Kress said, “Nvidia’s strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years.”

Kress will retain the finance role while serving as interim CEO. She joined Nvidia in 2013 after nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft.

The board appointed former Synopsys chief executive and executive chairman Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever chair. 

Jones said Kress understood the business and its customers. He added, “The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.”

On November 8, Huang apologised in a company-published message for being unfaithful to his wife and pledged to co-operate with an independent board inquiry into reports that he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort.

Reports say Huang had another extramarital affair with a senior executive of Nvidia, in addition to the relationship with a Chinese national Alice Huang, who was allegedly recruited as an intelligence asset by the Chinese government.

On November 10, independent directors appointed former acting US attorney Joon H. Kim and law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to lead the inquiry. The board said it had no reason to believe national security or company information had been compromised.

Nvidia faces a fast-growing, increasingly competitive AI-chip market. Founded in 1993 as a graphics-chip maker, it later adapted GPUs for parallel computing through software such as CUDA. 

In its latest reported quarter, ended on July 26, it recorded revenue of $96.2 billion, including $89 billion from data centres. Its next results are due on November 17.