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Jensen Huang has resigned as Nvidia’s CEO, president and board member, ending his 33-year run at the company he co-founded.
The market reaction: Nvidia shares plunged nearly 10% on Thursday, pulling its market value below $4 trillion. The stock has now lost more than 20% in a month.
This is not a regular leadership change. Huang transformed Nvidia from a company known mainly for gaming graphics into the biggest supplier of chips powering artificial intelligence.
These processors can handle thousands of calculations at once. That makes them essential for training AI models, the reason Nvidia’s chips are often described as the fuel behind the AI boom.
Huang also became unusually influential. A mention from him could lift another company’s shares, while fans across Asia lined up for his autograph.
What happened: scrutiny increased after reports concerning Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive whom US intelligence reportedly suspected of working with Chinese intelligence. China denied the allegation.
Huang admitted being unfaithful to his wife but did not publicly identify the person involved. Nvidia’s board opened an independent investigation and initially said it had no reason to believe company secrets or national security had been compromised.
Days later, another report alleged that Huang had a relationship with an Nvidia executive reporting to him. He has now stepped down with immediate effect.
Who takes over: chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while Nvidia searches for a permanent leader.
Kress joined Nvidia in 2013 after holding senior financial roles at Microsoft, Cisco and Texas Instruments. She understands the company’s finances and investors, but replacing Huang’s product vision and industry influence will be a much bigger task.
A small Indian angle: Indian-origin executive Aarti Shah was among the Nvidia directors deciding Huang’s future. The former Eli Lilly digital chief studied statistics and mathematics at Gujarat University and joined Nvidia’s board in 2020.
Zoom out: Huang’s exit creates uncertainty for Nvidia but could give competitors such as AMD, Intel and companies building their own AI chips an opening.
The chips have not changed. The difficult question is whether Nvidia can keep leading the AI race without the man who took it there.
