Nvidia has named its chief financial officer, Colette Kress, as interim chief executive after co-founder Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday, following an admission of an extramarital affair. Kress will continue to serve as the company's finance chief while she leads the chipmaker, a dual role that places one of the most influential executives in the technology sector at the center of the company's leadership during a period of uncertainty.
Huang's departure came after reports that the affair raised national security concerns, with some accounts citing a relationship with a suspected Chinese spy. The circumstances of his exit have drawn attention across the global technology industry, where Nvidia has become one of the most valuable companies in the world and a central supplier of the chips that power artificial intelligence systems.
Kress has served as Nvidia's chief financial officer since 2013, a tenure that coincided with a dramatic expansion of the company's business. Under her financial oversight, the company's revenue grew by $4.13 billion to $130.5 billion, and its market capitalization rose from about $9 billion to nearly $4 trillion. Her appointment as interim leader gives the company continuity in its financial operations at a moment when investors are watching closely how it will be run without Huang.
The leadership change also raises questions about what comes next. According to the reporting, Nvidia had no publicly disclosed succession plan in place before Huang's resignation. The company's board is now chaired by Harvey Jones, a technology industry veteran, and the board will be responsible for deciding on a permanent successor. One analyst expects the board to seek a technologist to fill the role on a longer-term basis.
Among the names that could be considered from inside the company is Ian Buck, who has been at Nvidia since 2004. Buck is widely identified as a possible insider candidate, though no decision has been announced, and the board has not publicly outlined a timeline for choosing a permanent chief executive.
The departure has also rippled through the broader market. Shares of rivals Broadcom, Intel and AMD rose after Huang's exit was announced, and analysts have suggested that increased competition could erode the near-monopoly Nvidia has held in the market for advanced AI chips. Chinese chipmaker Huawei may also benefit if export controls on advanced chips tighten, according to analysts cited in the coverage.
Other companies linked to Nvidia's business were affected as well. CoreWeave, a cloud computing provider in which Nvidia holds a stake of nearly 13 percent, fell about 7 percent. The episode has also drawn renewed scrutiny of circular financing arrangements in the AI sector, in which chipmakers and their customers invest in one another. Attention has further turned to the planned initial public offering of Anthropic, which is valued at $1.3 trillion and may face new questions from investors.
Huang had been a prominent figure beyond the technology sector, serving as a political advocate with ties to President Donald Trump. He had also predicted that Nvidia's chip order backlog would reach $1 trillion by the end of the year, a forecast that now carries added uncertainty as the company adjusts to new leadership.