Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia CEO, President, and board member effective immediately, Thursday, following an internal investigation into multiple extramarital affairs and alleged foreign intelligence threats. Jewish CFO Colette Kress has been named interim CEO, while the board appoints a permanent successor.
The departure followed recent reports that Huang had an affair with Alice Huang (no relation), a Chinese national and executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, whom U.S. intelligence suspects is a Chinese spy. Huang admitted to being "unfaithful to my wife" on November 8, but denied compromising national security.
On Wednesday, reports emerged of two other affairs, one with an unnamed employee, and a second affair with Nvidia VP of Healthcare Kimberly Powell -- who reported directly to him with sources claiming the two were seen being affectionate as recently as March 2026, raising direct corporate governance and conflict-of-interest violations.
The reports prompted the board to accept Huang's resignation late Wednesday, appointed Harvey Jones as its first chair and hired outside counsel Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct an independent investigation.
The scandal triggered significant concern over U.S. security, as Megaspeed allegedly used its relationship with Huang to access 240,000 restricted AI chips banned from export to China, potentially benefiting competitor Huawei.
The FBI is investigating the ties, and Huang has agreed to testify before Congress. President Donald Trump called the news "horrible" and in a Truth Social post Thursday, suggested ex-Apple CEO Tim Cook as a successor.
Nvidia stock dropped as much as 14% on the news before recovering some ground, closing down approximately 4%.
Following Kress's appointment as interim CEO,, social media commentators and viral online posts began questioning whether Huang’s ouster amounted to an "Israeli coup" inside Nvidia. Critics pointed to a July 2023 interview with Israeli business daily Globes, in which Kress noted that her workday typically begins with meetings with Nvidia’s Israeli executives before moving on to California. Others noted that Nvidia’s board is searching for a permanent CEO and speculated that Israeli executives—such as Nvidia CTO Michael Kagan (co-founder of Mellanox) or Apple hardware chief Johny Srouji—could be contenders.
Nvidia’s footprint in Israel dates back to its $6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli networking firm Mellanox in 2020, a deal spearheaded by Huang himself. By 2026, Nvidia employed nearly 6,000 people in Israel (roughly 12% of its global workforce), and its Mellanox-derived networking division generated roughly $40 billion in annual revenue—about 16% of Nvidia's total.
Prior to Nvidia, Kress spent eight years in finance at Texas Instruments, 13 years at Microsoft (including four years as CFO of its Server and Tools division), and three years as a senior finance executive at Cisco. Her first major test arrives on November 17, 2026, when Nvidia is scheduled to report its fiscal third-quarter earnings.
