Nvidia's board announced on Thursday that Jensen Huang, a co-founder who has led the company since its founding in 1993, has resigned as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board, effective immediately. According to The Verge, the board accepted his letter of resignation after a meeting late on Wednesday. The official announcement includes no statement from Huang himself.
Colette Kress, executive vice president and CFO of Nvidia since 2013, will serve as interim CEO while remaining CFO. The board is starting a search for a permanent chief executive and will consider internal and external candidates. It also named Harvey C. Jones, former CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys, as Nvidia's first-ever chair of the board. Jones said operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap are expected to continue without interruption.
The resignation follows this morning's report that the board was preparing to oust Huang, after a report of a romantic relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of health care, who reported directly to him. Days earlier, Huang admitted to a relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed whom US intelligence officials suspect of working for Chinese intelligence. According to Tom's Hardware, Nvidia shares fell more than 10% in early trading after the announcement and are down more than 23% over the past month. Who will replace Huang permanently is not yet known.
