For the first time in its 33-year history, Nvidia has a new CEO. Jensen Huang, who co-founded the chipmaker in 1993 and led it through the AI boom, resigned Thursday. He also stepped down as president and gave up his seat on the board, effective immediately.
Nvidia gave no reason for his departure, though we can think of a few (namely, two).
For now, the job will go to CFO of Nvidia, Colette Kress, who has run Nvidia’s finances since 2013. She’ll stay on as chief financial officer while serving as interim CEO, and the board will look both inside and outside the company for a permanent replacement. The board also picked longtime director Harvey C. Jones to serve as its first chair.
The announcement came a day after Nvidia’s board met to discuss Huang’s future. Why? Earlier Nov. 11, the Times reported that Huang had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare and one of his direct reports. Though that wasn’t the only affair.
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On Sunday, Huang told employees he had been “unfaithful to my wife” without naming the person involved…but the New York Times identified her as Alice Huang (no relation), an executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed, whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly suspected of spying for China. China denied the allegations, and Nvidia’s board, and Donald Trump, said that it had no reason to believe U.S. national security or company secrets had been compromised.
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Huang’s departure marks the first CEO change in Nvidia’s history. The company built its name selling graphics chips for gaming. Those chips went on to become central to training AI models, and under Huang, Nvidia also invested in some of the companies that buy them.
Nvidia shares fell about 10 percent in premarket trading Nov. 12 after the resignation announcement. The company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on Tuesday, Nov. 17.
This is a developing story…
