Jensen Huang Abruptly Steps Down, Ending Nvidia Founder Era After 33 Years

Nvidia announced Jensen Huang's resignation in an official press release on November 12, local time. According to the announcement, Huang stepped down from his roles as President, CEO, and board member, which he had held as Nvidia's co-founder and CEO, and the resignation took effect immediately. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has led the company for about 33 years.

As a company that has led the global AI semiconductor industry, Nvidia faced an unavoidable change in its management structure following Huang's resignation. Nvidia's board appointed CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO to fill the leadership vacuum. The interim CEO arrangement will remain in place until a successor is named.

Nvidia's board has begun the process of selecting the next CEO. Both internal and external candidates are under review for the post. Kress will continue to serve as both CEO and CFO until a permanent successor is chosen.

Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013 and has served as CFO and EVP, overseeing the company's finance organization. She has played a key role in the company's growth and business expansion.

Before joining Nvidia, Kress spent about 25 years in finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft, among others. She has thus built a career as a finance executive.

Nvidia appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first board chair. Jones is an entrepreneur, technology executive, and venture investor with more than 30 years of experience. He previously served as CEO and chairman of Synopsys. Nvidia's board plans to proceed with management transition efforts and the selection of a successor CEO under Jones's leadership.

Huang's resignation came amid recent reporting on his private life and also as controversy over a national security probe involving Nvidia emerged.

Bloomberg and Reuters reported allegations that Huang had an inappropriate relationship with a woman suspected of ties to China. The woman was reported to have previously served as an executive at Megaspeed, a data center-related company. U.S. intelligence authorities were also reported to suspect that the woman may have links to Chinese intelligence agencies, and reports also covered Huang's relationship with an Nvidia employee. These privacy-related reports and allegations were raised through various media reports.

However, Nvidia did not officially confirm those reports as reasons for the resignation in its CEO departure announcement.

Nvidia's board issued a statement on November 8, local time. The board said it had launched an independent investigation into recent reports that Huang had been the target of intelligence-gathering activities by foreign intelligence agencies. The investigation is being overseen by a committee made up of independent directors and outside independent legal counsel.

The board said it saw no basis to determine a national security issue or a breach of Nvidia confidential information, but stated that it would proceed with the investigation to verify the relevant facts. Huang conveyed that he would fully cooperate with the inquiry.

U.S. media outlets including AP and Reuters reported that the resignation came as related allegations continued to be reported. Nvidia's official resignation announcement was made on November 12.

However, Nvidia's official November 12 announcement was found not to include specific details on the reason for the departure or the investigation's findings.

The resignation also marks a change in the 33-year founder-led era. Huang was a co-founder who established Nvidia in 1993 with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, and he served as the company's top executive for many years.

Nvidia's growth was driven by its GPU business. The company pursued a strategy of expanding the use of GPUs from graphics processing to parallel computing and high-performance computing, which laid the foundation for Nvidia to establish itself as a key player in the AI semiconductor market. More recently, it has expanded its influence by centering on data center GPUs and related systems, powered by rising demand for generative AI and training and inference of large AI models, while broadening its presence across the global semiconductor industry.

This resignation is seen as more than a simple executive shuffle and as a change in the management structure led by a founder for 33 years. Huang had led Nvidia's business strategy and technology roadmap in the AI semiconductor market, and the main focus now is on how the interim management team will fill the gap left by Huang.

In this regard, Nvidia's board said in an official statement that it expects interim CEO Kress and the existing management team to continue business operations, customer contracts, and the product roadmap without interruption. Kress also said she would carry forward the foundation Huang built and pursue business opportunities in accelerated computing and AI.

Nvidia is scheduled to release its third-quarter results for fiscal 2027 on November 17, U.S. local time. This earnings release will be the first major public earnings announcement since the CEO's resignation, and attention is focused on the company's operating direction after the leadership change and the process of selecting a future successor.

An industry expert explained that, within the scope currently verifiable, Nvidia's official announcements confirmed Huang's immediate resignation, Kress's appointment as interim CEO, the start of the search for a successor, and the appointment of the board chair. However, specific judgments on the reasons for the resignation and the investigation results have not been confirmed, and the next CEO appointment remains undecided, so further announcements will be needed to verify those matters.

Source: TECHWORLD · Park Kyu-chan
Original: https://www.epnc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=409720

References

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