Jensen Huang’s exit plunges the $4 trillion company into uncertainty and threatens to disrupt an AI ecosystem that he helped bankroll by pouring Nvidia’s swelling cash pile back into cloud providers, suppliers and the industry’s biggest labs. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is stepping down, leaving the AI industry without its biggest champion and clouding the future of the chipmaker he built into an AI powerhouse.
Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will take over as interim CEO as Nvidia looks for a permanent successor, the company said on Thursday (November 12, 2026). Mr. Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and is its fourth-largest investor with a stake of about 3.61%, will not remain on the board.
Pressure has been mounting on Mr. Huang in recent days after reports said the 63-year-old, who is married, had an affair with a Chinese businesswoman who U.S. authorities suspect of spying for Beijing.
Nvidia’s board met on Wednesday (November 11, 2026) to consider his ouster, a person familiar with the matter said, after reports earlier in the day that Mr. Huang also had an extramarital affair with a senior company executive who reported to him.
Mr. Huang’s exit plunges the $4 trillion company into uncertainty and threatens to disrupt an AI ecosystem that he helped bankroll by pouring Nvidia’s swelling cash pile back into cloud providers, suppliers and the industry’s biggest labs.
Investor sentiment toward AI stocks has already been shaky, as soaring cash burn and rising debt at traditionally cash-rich tech giants fuel doubts over whether the AI boom will pay off.
The departure could also have far-reaching consequences for US chip export policy, given Mr. Huang’s push to preserve access to the Chinese market and his close ties with US President Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump said on Sunday (November 8, 2026) that Mr. Huang had “done an amazing job for our country” and that the Nvidia chief had told him he had no idea the Chinese woman he had an affair with was a spy.
For years, Nvidia was best known to gamers chasing top-tier graphics. But its chips’ ability to perform many calculations at once has made them the oil of the AI boom and a strategic prize in the US-China race to dominate the technology. It also made Nvidia the world’s most valuable company.
That turned Mr. Huang into a rock-star CEO, mobbed by fans in Taiwan and South Korea who ask him to sign books, posters and sometimes even their bodies. Such is his pull that stocks moved at his mere mention of company names at events.
But scrutiny of his conduct has intensified in recent days after reports of his relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed who U.S. authorities have concluded was a Chinese intelligence asset.
The two, who have been photographed together in Taiwan, Singapore and California, are not related.
Washington has also investigated Megaspeed, a coveted official Nvidia cloud partner with priority access to its chips, over suspicions it helped China obtain advanced AI chips restricted under U.S. export controls, according to media reports. Beijing has denied Alice Huang is a spy.
Earlier this month, Nvidia’s board launched a probe, led by independent directors with outside legal counsel, into whether Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. It also expressed confidence in him at the time.
The controversy escalated on Wednesday when the New York Times reported Mr. Huang also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reported to him.
Published – November 12, 2026 07:37 pm IST
