Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia Boss Amid 'Honeytrap' Scandal, Interim CEO Appointed

Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of Nvidia, the company he co-founded in 1993. An interim boss has been appointed by Nvidia’s board of directors.Colette Kress, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, is appointed Interim CEO, Nvidia said. Harvey C. Jones was appointed its first-ever Chair of the Board.In a statement, Nvidia's Board of Directors confirmed that Huang had resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board, effective immediately. Kress will continue to serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer while serving as Interim CEO until a permanent successor has been named. The Board said the search was on for a permanent CEO and "will consider internal and external candidates."Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-Series RevealWho is Colette Kress?Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013 and has been its Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since then. She leads the gargantuan company's finance organization. Before Nvidia, Kress spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft.“Colette has helped lead Nvidia through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position,” said Harvey Jones, Chair of the Nvidia Board of Directors. “She is supported by an experienced leadership team that has been instrumental in executing NVIDIA’s strategy and advancing its technology roadmap. 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.”“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 commented. “We will continue advancing the work that has made Nvidia a leader in accelerated computing and AI, and execute on the opportunities ahead. Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders.”Nvidia's Board of Directors and the FBI launched an investigation into the 63-year-old Huang after he admitting having an affair with a woman alleged to have been a Chinese spy. The New York Times then reported that Huang had a second affair with an executive at his own company. Stocks in the company fell on the news.Nvidia provides advanced computer chips for everything from video games to cloud servers, but in recent years it has focused on the AI industry. Off the back of the enormous demand for memory to power data centers, Nvidia has become the world’s second-most valuable company, worth more than $4 trillion.The prospect of Huang losing his job at Nvidia sent shockwaves throughout the tech industry. Tim Sweeney, boss of Fortnite developer Epic Games, was vocal in his support for Huang. He tweeted: “This would be an Apple firing Steve Jobs level of idiocy from Nvidia’s board if they did that, and a grievous harm to the United States of America. The dude truly is the visionary driver of the future of tech from the gaming GPU era to CUDA to AI supercomputers.”Reacting to the news of Huang's exit today, Sweeney tweeted: "A sad day for Nvidia, developers, America, and all humanity. Jensen founded and ran one of the few companies to reach a massive scale while driving massive continued innovation and ubiquity, while others fell into the trap of ever-increasing extraction."What happens next?Nvidia released the standard exit statement on Huang's departure, saying his controbutions to the company were "profound.""Nvidia is one of the most consequential technology companies in the world," the statement continued. "The Board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry."Nvidia will report its third-quarter fiscal 2027 financial results on Tuesday, November 17, and all eyes will be on the company for news of a plan for the future.Meanwhile, Huang is now potentially on the market as a competitor to the company he built. Yesterday, SpaceX, Telsa, and X owner Elon Musk tweeted to say it would be "an honour" to work with Huang.Whatever Huang decides to do next, his days of showing off Nvidia graphics cards live on-stage during flashy presentations are over.Photo by Joel Saget / AFP via Getty Images.Wesley is IGN's Managing Editor. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.In This Article