Stocks
Nvidia's Jensen Huang resigns as CEO and leaves the board; CFO Colette Kress named interim chief
The chip maker said the departure is effective immediately, gave no reason, and kept its November 17 earnings date.
HedgeWeekly News Desk ·
Nvidia said on Thursday that Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and director, effective immediately. The company's announcement gave no reason for the move and thanked Huang for his contributions to the company and the industry. Chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while keeping her finance role, and Harvey C. Jones, a former CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys, becomes Nvidia's first board chair.
The board will look at internal and external candidates for a permanent chief executive and set no timeline. Jones said the board has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team, and expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption. Nvidia will still report fiscal third-quarter results on Tuesday, November 17, with its call at 2 p.m. Pacific.
The exit follows days of scrutiny. On November 9, Fortune reported that Nvidia's board had opened an investigation into reports that a foreign intelligence effort had targeted Huang, while saying it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. Nvidia was then valued at about $4.3 trillion, and its shares fell more than 4% that Monday. Investinglive, citing the company release and an earlier Wall Street Journal report, said the stock dropped about 9% before Thursday's announcement and was down roughly 11% afterward.
For investors, the key question is succession depth. Fortune reported that Huang had run Nvidia for 33 years, had about 60 direct reports and that the company has no chief operating officer. Funds that hold Nvidia as an index weight or a crowded long will watch the November 17 report for how the interim team handles guidance and customer commitments. Huang is also the company's largest individual shareholder, with a 3.56% stake according to Fortune, and neither source says what he plans to do with it.