Jensen Huang steps down from Nvidia as Colette Kress named interim CEO
The chipmaker's co-founder stepped down as president, chief executive and director, with CFO Colette Kress taking over as interim CEO ahead of quarterly results.
Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's president, chief executive and director with immediate effect on Thursday, 12 November. That ends a 33-year run at the chipmaker he co-founded, and it leaves finance chief Colette Kress in charge four business days before third-quarter results.
Nvidia shares fell more than 7% in US premarket trading. At one point they were down more than 10% before paring losses, and the company's market value slipped below US$4 trillion.
The company's 8-K filing gave no reason for the departure.
Four days earlier, the board had opened an independent investigation into reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. At the time it said it had confidence in him and his leadership team. On 8 November Huang told staff by email that he had been unfaithful to his wife. That followed New York Times reporting that US officials believe Alice Huang, an executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed, was a Chinese intelligence asset. She is no relation. No one has been charged. China's embassy in Washington has rejected the allegations as baseless smears, and Alice Huang did not respond to the Times' requests for comment. Nvidia has said that earlier claims that Megaspeed diverted its chips were investigated and debunked. In his email Huang said he supported the board's review and would cooperate with it. He had made no public statement on his resignation by Thursday morning, US time.
Kress has been CFO since September 2013. She becomes interim CEO and keeps the finance job until a permanent successor is named. The board will consider both internal and external candidates.
"The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team," said Harvey C. Jones, a director and former Synopsys chief executive. He now becomes Nvidia's first-ever board chair.
That post matters more than it sounds. Huang left behind a board with no chair, no clear succession plan and roughly 60 executives who reported to him directly.
The filing did not say whether the board's investigation will continue or what it has found. Nvidia said it will report fiscal third-quarter results as scheduled on Tuesday, 17 November, at about 1:20 pm Pacific time, with the earnings call at 2 pm. Those will be its first quarterly results as a listed company without Huang as chief executive.