The most powerful man in AI is OUT. Nvidia announced Thursday that Jensen Huang — the leather-jacket CEO who built a chip company into the engine of the entire AI boom — has resigned as president, chief executive officer and board member, effective immediately. His 33-year run is over. And the scandal that took him down is wilder than anything Silicon Valley has ever seen.
WHAT HAPPENED
Nvidia said Thursday, November 12, that Huang resigned from every role he held — president, CEO and his seat on the board — effective immediately. In its SEC filing, the company said the board accepted his resignation on Wednesday, November 11. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress takes over as interim CEO while keeping her CFO job, as the board searches inside and outside the company for a permanent successor. Former Synopsys CEO Harvey C. Jones was named the board’s first-ever chairman. Huang, 63, co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has run it ever since. He owns about 3.6% of the company.
THE SCANDAL
Here is the timeline. On Sunday, November 8, Nvidia’s board announced an independent investigation into whether Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence operation. Huang admitted in a statement that he had been unfaithful to his wife — with a woman U.S. intelligence officials suspect of spying for China, identified in reports as Alice Huang (no relation), a former executive at a company called Megaspeed. Then the New York Times reported a SECOND affair — with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s own vice president of healthcare. Lawmakers piled on: the House China Select Committee chairman warned Huang could face subpoenas if he did not agree to brief three House committees, and Senator Kevin Cramer said publicly that Huang should step down. Days later, he was gone.
THE MARKET EARTHQUAKE
Wall Street felt it instantly. Nvidia shares plunged more than 10% Thursday morning — putting roughly $500 BILLION of the company’s value on track to evaporate, after the stock had already lost hundreds of billions earlier in the week as the scandal built. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 slid with it, because Nvidia is one of the biggest companies on Earth — when it falls, everybody’s retirement account feels it. Nvidia still reports its earnings on Tuesday, November 17, as scheduled — now with an interim CEO walking into the fire.
WHAT IT MEANS
Jensen Huang wasn’t just a CEO — he WAS Nvidia. The black leather jacket, the stadium keynotes, the AI gospel — investors didn’t just buy the chips, they bought him. Replacing a founder like that is hard enough. Replacing him in the middle of the AI boom, in the middle of a scandal, with an espionage investigation hanging over the company — that’s uncharted territory. The search for his successor starts now, and the whole tech world is watching.
Can Nvidia survive without Jensen Huang — or was HE the company? Drop your thoughts in the comments 👇🏾
Sources: Reuters; Nvidia announcement and SEC filing; The Wall Street Journal; The New York Times; Barron’s. Tip via @spiritualword.
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