2026-11-12

Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO - Colette Kress Named Interim Chief, Stock Falls Up to 13%, Bernstein Halves Price Target

Written & reviewed by the TradeSmrt editorial team · 2026-11-12

In this article

What Happened
Polymarket's Favorite for Next CEO Didn't Get the Job - At Least Not Yet
What to Take Away From This
FAQ
Sources

What Happened

By Thursday, November 12, the "board is preparing to oust him" headline that broke the night before didn't even last a full day before turning into an actual resignation. Nvidia issued an official statement confirming that Jensen Huang had resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board of Directors, effective immediately. The CEO chair that had never changed hands in the company's 33-year history - Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and had run it ever since - came to an end in a single day.

CFO Colette Kress was named interim CEO, keeping her CFO title while taking on the top job as the board searches both internally and externally for a permanent successor. Kress has held the CFO role since September 2013, after 13 years at Microsoft and eight years at Texas Instruments, and has sat beside Huang on virtually every earnings call for over a decade. In a statement tied to her appointment, Kress said, "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." Alongside the CEO transition, Nvidia named Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever independent board chair - splitting the chairman and CEO roles that Huang had previously held simultaneously, a governance change that typically signals a board moving to strengthen its oversight function after a crisis.

This resignation wasn't a bolt out of the blue; it was the culmination of several days of escalating developments. On Sunday, November 8, Nvidia's board announced an independent investigation, led by independent directors and outside counsel, into whether Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. After the regular session closed on Wednesday, November 11, the Wall Street Journal reported exclusively that the board was preparing to remove him, and the New York Times reported almost simultaneously that, beyond the previously acknowledged relationship with a woman suspected of ties to Chinese intelligence, Huang had also been involved in a separate inappropriate relationship with another Nvidia executive - identified by the Times as Kimberly Powell, who leads the company's healthcare business. Shares sank 7-9% in after-hours trading on those two reports combined, and the resignation became official the very next morning.

The market reaction was intense again on the day itself. Figures vary somewhat by outlet, but Nvidia shares fell as much as 13% at Thursday's open before paring a chunk of that decline as the session progressed, settling into a range of roughly 4% to 10% down depending on the report and the moment it was filed. Coverage described the stock opening below $150 after Wednesday's close near $173, then recovering to around the $156 area. One Yahoo Finance analysis noted the drop left Nvidia roughly 35% below its all-time high. Investment bank Bernstein cut its price target on the stock exactly in half on the day, from $400 to $200.

Polymarket's Favorite for Next CEO Didn't Get the Job - At Least Not Yet

As covered in yesterday's article on this site, Polymarket's prediction-market contract for Nvidia's next CEO had engineering lead Ian Buck in first place, with Kress trailing in second. The board's actual move - installing Kress as interim CEO - didn't match the market's top pick. That's a live demonstration of why prediction-market odds deserve real skepticism: thin-volume contracts often blur the distinction between "who becomes the permanent successor" and "who runs the company during the transition," and those are genuinely different questions that can have different answers. The board's choice of Kress likely reflects the trust she's built with investors and in financial reporting, and a preference for stability during a leadership vacuum, over a bet on any particular long-term strategic direction. Critically, the board explicitly framed this as an interim arrangement and said the search for a permanent CEO - open to both internal and external candidates - continues, so Buck or another name entirely could still end up in the role.

This episode is close to a textbook case of key-person risk actually materializing. Huang wasn't just an executive - he had become something close to a living symbol of the entire AI industry narrative on Wall Street - so his departure hit the stock hard and immediately even though nothing about Nvidia's actual chip demand or revenue changed overnight. That the stock clawed back part of its opening drop as the session wore on is also worth noting: it suggests that after an initial bout of panic, some investors found reassurance in the fact that a known, trusted CFO had stepped into the role quickly and that the board moved fast on governance changes, including separating the chair and CEO roles. Bernstein's target cut, meanwhile, is a sign that this governance uncertainty and leadership vacuum are genuinely showing up in near-term valuation models, not just in headline price swings.

The decision to split the board chair from the CEO role is worth dwelling on separately. Having one person hold both positions - which Huang did for years - is a classic governance weak point that critics argue limits a board's ability to hold management accountable. Naming Jones as an independent chair reads as a signal that the board intends to tighten its oversight function in the wake of this crisis. Separating the chair and CEO roles has become an increasingly common move among U.S. public companies generally, and such changes tend to cluster around moments of leadership crisis or trust breakdowns rather than happening in calmer times.

The timing matters too: this all unfolded just five days before Nvidia's third-quarter earnings report, scheduled for November 17. Kress will now run her first earnings call as interim CEO, and investors and analysts are likely to spend as much time probing whether the leadership change has any real-world effect on customer relationships, supply chains, and AI infrastructure spending decisions as they spend on the actual numbers. How she handles that call, leaning on her financial-communication strengths as a longtime CFO, could be the key factor in whether the stock stabilizes in the days ahead.

What to Take Away From This

The first lesson is that a prediction market's favorite doesn't always get the job. Thin-volume contracts tend to conflate "permanent successor" with "interim caretaker," and this case shows a second-place candidate can end up with the actual role while the frontrunner waits.

The second lesson is that key-person risk shows its sharpest teeth the moment a resignation is confirmed, not during the investigation or "preparing to remove" phases. That said, initial opening-bell drops often get partially reversed during the session, so reading too much into the single lowest intraday print is a mistake.

The third lesson is that governance changes made in the aftermath of a crisis - like splitting the chair and CEO roles here - send a dual signal: they confirm real uncertainty existed, but they also show a board actively working to stabilize the situation, which markets sometimes reward even amid the chaos.

The fourth lesson is that a leadership change landing right before a major earnings report changes the nature of that call. Expect governance and stability questions, not just revenue and margin numbers, to dominate November 17.

FAQ

Is Colette Kress now Nvidia's permanent CEO?

No. Nvidia explicitly named her interim CEO while she retains her CFO title. The board says its search for a permanent successor - considering both internal and external candidates - is ongoing.

Did Jensen Huang leave the board entirely, or just the CEO role?

According to Nvidia's own announcement, Huang resigned as President, CEO, and board member all at once, effective immediately. That's a cleaner, more complete exit than cases where an outgoing CEO steps down from day-to-day leadership but stays on the board.

How much did the stock actually fall?

Reports vary. Several outlets describe an intraday drop of up to roughly 13% at the open that narrowed to somewhere between 4% and 10% as the session progressed, with the stock recovering from an opening dip below $150 back toward the $156 area. For the exact closing figure, check a live market data source directly.

Will this affect the November 17 earnings report?

It shouldn't change Nvidia's actual revenue or chip demand directly, but as the first call under an interim CEO, analysts are likely to focus heavily on leadership stability and governance alongside the usual financial metrics - which could add to volatility around the report itself.

Sources

This article is an independent synthesis and analysis based on the reporting below, not a reproduction of the original coverage. Please check the original sources directly for the latest figures and developments.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice. Market conditions change constantly, so please verify the latest data before making any investment decisions.