NVIDIA announces CEO transition as Jensen Huang resigns effective immediately

NVIDIA said founder and CEO Jensen Huang resigned effective immediately on November 12, 2026, with CFO Colette Kress named interim CEO and Harvey C. Jones appointed the company's first board chair.

NVIDIA announced on November 12, 2026, that founder and CEO Jensen Huang had resigned as President, CEO and board member effective immediately, according to NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition.

What changed

CFO Colette Kress was named interim CEO while keeping her CFO title.
Harvey C. Jones, former CEO and Executive Chairman of Synopsys, became NVIDIA's first ever board chair.
NVIDIA's board is searching for a permanent CEO, weighing both internal and external candidates.
The leadership transition was filed as an SEC 8-K the same day.
NVIDIA's pending $12.9 billion acquisition of Hugging Face, announced in September 2026 and expected to close in the first half of 2027, is now reported to be in question, after the Department of Justice opened a competitive impact inquiry in October 2026.

What it means for builders

The change matters for people building with AI because it directly threatens the pending Hugging Face acquisition and raises uncertainty over NVIDIA's open-weight model programs, including Nemotron and NIM, that many AI developers and open-source model builders rely on. Huang had been a vocal advocate for open-weight models, co-signing a July 2026 letter with 25 companies opposing restrictions on open-weight AI. Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue said the same day he would keep fighting for open-source AI, harder than ever.

What comes next

NVIDIA's board continues searching for a permanent CEO, and the company's Q3 FY2027 earnings call remains scheduled for November 17, 2026.

Sources

NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition (NVIDIA, November 12, 2026, official)

Written with AI assistance, strictly from the sources listed above. Before it went live, automated checks verified its dates, sources and every language edition.