At ten o’clock on the evening of November 12, Nvidia issued an announcement. Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive officer, and director, effective immediately. There was no transition period, and he did not retain a seat on the board.
That same day, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress took over as interim CEO, and Harvey Jones, who had served on the board since 1993, became chairman. In the company’s thirty-three-year history, this was the first time it had created the position of chairman.
The announcement didn’t give a reason for the resignation. The timeline speaks for itself. On November 8, Jensen Huang wrote to all employees, admitting he had been unfaithful to his wife. That same day, the board announced an independent investigation; two days later, it brought in an outside law firm to lead it. On November 11, a second extramarital affair was reported. A day later, he was no longer in the office.
The market reaction was immediate. When trading opened on the day of the announcement, the stock briefly fell more than 14%, before narrowing its losses to 4.34% by the close.
Many people have framed this as capital forcing him out. That account skips over the most critical link in the chain. Jensen Huang owns about 3.58% of the shares. Nvidia has one share class with equal voting rights; it has no dual-class structure, so the founder gets no extra votes. He held the position for 33 years because the board and shareholders repeatedly voted to put their trust in him. In the June 2026 board election, 99% voted in his favor. That was a mandate of trust, not a safeguard in the form of an ownership stake.
Once trust collapses, four days is all it takes.
The gap in corporate governance also became clear at this moment. The board has 11 members, 10 of them independent directors besides him, so on paper there are plenty of checks and balances. But the company had never appointed a number two. At one point, more than 60 executives reported directly to him, and there was no succession bench. In good times, that’s called efficiency. In bad times, it’s a single point of failure. When the founder ran into trouble, the board had no ready-made successor and could only put a veteran with a finance background in as an interim replacement.
Kress joined Nvidia in 2013. Before that, she held senior finance roles at Microsoft and Cisco, and knows the company’s financial structure and operating rhythm well. The board also said that the product and operations roadmaps would proceed as planned. In the chip business, short-term decisions are driven by orders and technology roadmaps; a CEO’s personal reputation is unlikely to change customers’ purchasing decisions in just a few quarters.
What truly pushed this story into its second act was two letters, two days later.
On November 13, Brad Gerstner of Altimeter Capital posted an open letter on X, co-signed by Gavin Baker of Atreides Management. The letter called on the board to choose the next leader through a slow, careful, and thorough process, and explicitly included the possibility of Jensen Huang’s return. The two firms had disclosed combined Nvidia holdings worth about $2.13 billion at the end of June. The letter did not call for Huang to be reinstated immediately. It stressed just one thing: don’t rush to replace him before the facts are established.
Today, Elon Musk said on X that he had signed the petition calling for Jensen Huang’s reinstatement. The day before, he had also said that without Huang, some key deals would be lost. The petition, called Stand with Jensen, has surpassed 100,000 signatures, including more than 5,000 current Nvidia employees.
The significance of this goes beyond Nvidia itself.
Jensen Huang is one of the few Silicon Valley CEOs to publicly advocate easing restrictions on chip exports to China. His argument has always been straightforward: if American chips are kept out of the Chinese market, it will only help Chinese-made alternatives advance faster. He has devoted substantial resources to lobbying for this position, and has made plenty of enemies as a result. After his departure, Nvidia’s voice on whether to continue selling chips to China will be significantly weaker.
Several key events are coming up in the next few days. Trump is visiting China this Thursday, and U.S. officials say they do not plan to bring up Nvidia or the suspected espionage allegations during the meeting. Commerce Secretary Lutnick has agreed to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on December 10. He will be asked how well the Commerce Department has done at preventing advanced AI chips from reaching China. Jensen Huang himself has also been asked to testify.
A founder with a 3.58% stake left with no ownership protections to rely on and no successor to hand things over to. A position held for 33 years was vacant in just four days.