Nvidia has removed Jensen Huang as chief executive, the company said Thursday, ending his 33-year run at the helm of the world’s most valuable chipmaker. The ouster follows Huang’s admission that he had an extramarital affair with a woman U.S. intelligence officials believe was working as a Chinese spy.
The board moved quickly after fresh reports of a second affair, this time with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, surfaced in the New York Times. Powell did not respond to requests for comment.
In Huang’s place, directors appointed Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO. Kress has been a steady presence at Nvidia and is well known to Wall Street. Harvey Jones, a managing partner at Square Wave Ventures and a board member since the company was founded in 1993, was named Nvidia’s first chair.
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and built it into the dominant supplier of artificial-intelligence chips. Under his leadership the company reached a market value above $4 trillion and posted record revenue. In the first half of fiscal 2027, sales climbed 85% year over year to $96 billion.
Despite that success, Huang’s authority had become unusually concentrated. He maintained a flat structure with roughly 60 direct reports, personally texted small clients, and had no clear successor. Nvidia also lacked both a chair and a chief operating officer.
The board now faces the difficult task of replacing not just a CEO but the figure most closely identified with the AI boom. Analysts say the challenge is less about engineering than about finding someone who can set Nvidia’s strategic direction, keep customers confident, and maintain the industry alliances Huang cultivated.
President Donald Trump, who had called Huang an "amazing guy" and "honorable man" after the initial revelations, has not said whether he will change his view. The Justice Department’s National Security Division is also examining the matter.
Nvidia shares fell more than 6% on the news. Huang still owns about 3.6% of the company, a stake worth roughly $150 billion.
