What we know

• New interim CEO: Nvidia’s board said Thursday that Jensen Huang has resigned after 33 years at the company he built, and that CFO Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO.

• A series of scandals: The decision comes after Nvidia’s board met late Wednesday, following reports that Huang had a relationship with an Nvidia executive. The CEO was already under scrutiny after reports of an affair with a different woman who was allegedly working as a spy for China, with the board hiring a law firm to investigate.

• Nvidia stock tumbles 10% on the news: Shares in the company, a major engine of US economic growth that has powered the AI boom, fell sharply in premarket trading. The stock is one of the largest in the S&P 500 and other major indexes, and its volatility affects retirement funds across the globe.

Updates

House speaker says Nvidia CEO “did the right thing” by stepping down

House Speaker Mike Johnson called the resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang a “big and shocking development” but said he “did the right thing” in stepping down.

“I mean, it’s a big and shocking development. You know, that’s a very important company that not only in the US economy but for national security purposes, and so a lot of interest and attention to that,” he said.

Johnson said he had been informed of the resignation just minutes earlier while walking to the floor.

Some members of the House want to question Huang, the speaker said, and “if that’s the the will of the body, that’s what will happen.”

“But there there still seems to me to be a lot of facts yet to be determined. So I’m reserving personal judgment on this, but it sounds like for him as an individual, he did the right thing for the company and for the country,” Johnson continued.

Huang's close ties to President Trump — and his influence on AI and China policy

There are few people in Silicon Valley who are closer to President Donald Trump than Jensen Huang, the now-former CEO of Nvidia.

He been a frequent presence in the West Wing and at Mar-a-Lago; he’s been a guest aboard Air Force One; and he and his wife have been fixtures at White House State Dinners.

He also has a direct line to the president’s phone. People who have been in meetings with Trump have seen Huang’s name pop up on Trump’s telephone. Trump once called Huang while he was appearing onstage at a conference.

Over the course of his term, Trump has met with Huang more than a dozen times, according to a CNN analysis. Aides say the two men speak frequently on the telephone, including late at night.

Last month, Trump awarded Huang the nation’s highest honor for scientific achievement. And the relationship has been reciprocal. Nvidia has committed $25 million for Trump’s planned White House ballroom, according to people familiar with the matter.

That access gave Huang broad influence in Trump’s thinking on artificial intelligence policy, administration officials say, including the thorny question of selling Nvidia’s high-powered chips to China.

The relationship developed rapidly after Trump won in 2024. Huang and his wife attended a $1 million-a-plate dinner at Mar-a-Lago in early 2025.

Afterward, the Trump administration backed off plans to restrict exports of the most advanced Nvidia AI chips to China.

Trump has gone out of his way to ensure Huang is present at some of his most important meetings.

When Huang was initially left off a list of tech executives traveling to China with the president last spring, Trump made a last-minute change and asked Huang to meet up with Air Force One in Alaska to join him.

Before Huang got onboard, Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed Trump on intelligence that Huang was in relationship with a potential Chinese spy, a source familiar with the matter previously told CNN.

Trump backs Commerce chief Lutnick despite rising scrutiny over Nvidia

President Donald Trump is standing by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for now, despite growing scrutiny over his department’s failure to act on longstanding concerns that China was gaining access to Nvidia’s advanced chips, the White House said Thursday.

“President Trump maintains complete confidence in the secretary and his ability to carry out the position as the most transformative Commerce Secretary in modern history,” a White House official told CNN on Thursday.

The vote of confidence came shortly after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned under pressure over revelations that he’d had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy.

Huang had played a central role in helping shape Trump’s approach to the artificial intelligence industry, and had publicly advocated for looser restrictions on the company’s ability to sell its advanced chips to China.

The scandal has renewed focus on the Commerce Department’s resistance to blacklisting Nvidia customer Megaspeed, despite concerns it was diverting chips to China. Lutnick was also among the top administration officials who had been briefed about the alleged Chinese spy, Alice Huang, who was then an executive at Megaspeed.

Singapore barred Alice Huang from the country months ago

Singapore barred Alice Huang, the tech executive and woman at the center of the scandal involving former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, from reentering the country earlier this year.

Alice Huang is believed by US officials to have worked as a spy for Chinese intelligence in her capacity as former director of Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based cloud computing and data center provider.

She reportedly had a close relationship with Huang, using it to funnel intelligence on Nvidia’s chip technology to China as well as deliveries of advanced chips to Beijing in defiance of US export controls.

On Thursday, Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs said authorities barred Huang from reentering the city-state earlier this year, believing her to have knowingly provided inaccurate information to police during an investigation into whether Megaspeed had made “false declarations in relation to the purchase of servers.”

In February, Singaporean police concluded there wasn’t enough evidence that Huang had committed any offences relating to these possible false declarations, the ministry said in a statement.

It added that the police investigation into Megaspeed, which began in early 2025, is ongoing.

“Singapore does not condone companies using their association with Singapore to circumvent or violate other countries’ export controls through fraud or dishonest practices,” the ministry said.

Nvidia shares drop 10% after Jensen Huang resigns

Nvidia shares dropped sharply Thursday morning in premarket trading after CEO Jensen Huang stepped down.

Nvidia shares (NVDA) fell 10% before the morning bell, with declines accelerating after the company announced his departure.

The crisis surrounding Huang is unsettling the outlook for the company at the very core of the AI trade. Huang has been a central pillar of the AI boom, championing the technology’s potential and serving as a key figure in dealmaking across the tech industry.

Nasdaq futures fell 1.4%, while S&P 500 futures lost 0.7%.

Nvidia taps first-ever board chair, will consider hiring outside CEO

Nvidia’s board of directors, under fire over the swirling scandal at the AI chipmaker and its failure to groom a successor for outgoing CEO Jensen Huang, just named its first-ever board chairman.

Nvidia tapped Harvey Jones, a tech investor and former CEO of Synopsys, to become chair.

Gary Gensler, former SEC chairman, told CNN on Wednesday night that Nvidia’s board of directors is “not a good picture of corporate governance” in part because of the absence of an outside chair.

The board of directors, including the chair, is responsible for hiring and firing CEOs, approving corporate strategy and building a bench of leaders who can manage the business.

Jones will now lead the impossible task of trying to replace Huang, the larger-than-life CEO who has led Nvidia since he helped found it in 1993.

Nvidia said the board has launched a search for a permanent CEO and will consider internal and external candidates. For now, the company will be steered by Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer who has been elevated to interim CEO until a permanent replacement takes over.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns, in stunning fall from grace

Jensen Huang, the founder who propelled Nvidia to become one of the world’s most valuable companies, has resigned from his role as chief executive after 33 years.

The announcement from Nvidia’s board Thursday morning ends a whirlwind several days of speculation about Huang’s future in the wake of a stunning corporate scandal.

It came days after the board said it would investigate whether Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort amid reports of his relationship with a woman US officials believe is a Chinese spy, and hours after The New York Times reported that the CEO also had an affair with an executive who reports to him.

The exit marks a sharp fall from grace for Huang, who is largely responsible for kicking off the AI boom. The chips made by the company he founded in 1993 have become critical to the AI infrastructure, putting Nvidia at the center of the AI buildout and thrusting Huang into President Donald Trump’s inner circle.

Colette Kress, current Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Nvidia, has agreed to serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer, the company said.

Huang is popular in Silicon Valley and the West Wing. It would be a hard act to follow

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has spent more than three decades cultivating relationships with titans of industry and heads of state — connections unlikely to be easily replicated by any potential successor.

Notably, Huang has established a warm connection with President Donald Trump, who, in recent days, has come to the CEO’s defense. “I think he’s an honorable guy,” Trump told reporters Monday. “He’s done an amazing job for our country.”

In May, Trump referred to the CEO as the “Great Jensen Huang” in a post on Truth Social as he traveled on Air Force One, with Huang, to China. A video from September, shared on X, shows Huang receiving a call from Trump while on stage at a conference in Los Angeles.

Huang has accompanied Trump on a trip to the United Kingdom and was seated next to the president at a meeting in September with other tech leaders to discuss guardrails around AI development (the group agreed to “self-police”).

Huang has also lobbied the president to loosen export controls on some of Nvidia’s advanced chips to China, arguing that limiting sales of US chips abroad would harm America’s standing as a global AI leader. In July 2025, Trump allowed Nvidia to restart shipments of a key chip, the H20, to the country.

As a first-mover in AI development, Huang has also had long working relationships with people at the center of the technology’s current boom.

In 2016, Huang personally delivered Nvidia’s first-ever AI supercomputer, powered by its chips, to Elon Musk, the co-founder of what was then a little-known research lab called OpenAI. Musk is now the CEO of SpaceX, an aerospace and AI company and a big buyer of Nvidia’s chips.

How Jensen Huang met his wife and college sweetheart, Lori

Long before the scandal of an alleged foreign intelligence operation and multiple reported extramarital affairs rocked Jensen Huang and Nvidia, the CEO had loved telling the story of how he met his wife, Lori.

He met her as a college student studying electrical engineering at Oregon State University in the 1980s. But he was the youngest in their class, and not a smooth operator, by his own telling.

“I walked up to her, and I said, ‘Do you want to see my homework?’” he said in one video, where he told the story at a panel event. “Then I made her a promise. I said, ‘If you do homework with me every Sunday, I promise you you will get straight A’s.’”

They got married five years after meeting. Just years later, at 30 years old, he founded Nvidia – the company that would make him one of the richest men on Earth.

Huang admitted in a company-wide email last weekend to having an extramarital affair, and apologized to Lori and their two children, without naming the other party. His relationship with alleged Chinese spy Alice Huang (of no relation) was already rocking the tech world; then on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Huang had had another affair, with a Nvidia executive.

Elon Musk says it would be "an honor" to hire embattled Huang

While Jensen Huang teeters at the top Nvidia, his more than $4 trillion AI chipmaker, he can count on an old friend to have his back: Elon Musk.

Late on Wednesday, financial blog ZeroHedge posted on X: “Elon please hire Jensen.”

“That would be an honor,” the boss of SpaceX and Tesla replied, though did not specify which of his several companies he would hypothetically hire Jensen into.

A hire by Musk would not be surprising, given the pair’s long and ostensibly warm working relationship. In 2016, Huang personally delivered Nvidia’s first AI supercomputer, powered by its chips, to Musk, the co-founder of what was then a little-known research lab called OpenAI.

Today, Musk’s aerospace and AI firm SpaceX is a big buyer of Nvidia’s chips. Last month, the Financial Times reported that it was looking to raise $40 billion to buy Nvidia chips.

Did Huang mislead Nvidia's board, or did Nvidia conceal from investors?

Nvidia, Jensen Huang, an alleged subordinate and a suspected Chinese spy are at the center of a soap opera captivating Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Washington.

And, like every other soap opera, this one appears to involve at least a dose of deception.

Did Nvidia’s rockstar CEO mislead his bosses on the board of directors? Did Nvidia and its board conceal from investors what was really going on?

Unlike a typical daytime drama, the stakes here are epic. Untangling who lied to whom could determine the fate of trillions of dollars.

Huang is viewed as so critical to Nvidia’s success that the chipmaker could lose $1 trillion of market value if the CEO is pushed out, according to estimates from Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives & Co.

“Jensen has created a black eye moment for himself and Nvidia and now has created a spider web of complexity that Wall Street, Silicon Valley, DC and the global tech ecosystem are trying to figure out what is next,” Ives wrote in a report to clients on Wednesday night.

Why Nvidia's stock drop matters so much to markets

Nvidia is the world’s second-most valuable publicly traded company, making it a mainstay of index funds and retirement savings accounts around the world.

Arguably the world’s most important AI chipmaker, Nvidia has a market value of $4.2 trillion, trailing only Apple’s $5.2 trillion market cap, according to FactSet, a data provider.

For context: The stock was already under pressure before reports of CEO Jensen Huang’s two extramarital affairs — including with a woman who US officials say is a Chinese asset — came to light. Nvidia share price is down 6.9% so far this year, compared with an 11.3% gain in the S&P 500, amid rising competition and growing doubts about the sustainability of the AI spending boom.

Now, analysts are questioning how the company will fare without Huang, should the board decide to oust him. Huang has been the driving force of Nvidia for decades and it is unclear who would replace him.

Saving grace? Notwithstanding the current turmoil, Nvidia’s specialized electronic chips mean the company will remain foundational to the AI revolution, according to Dan Ives, a veteran tech analyst and partner at merchant bank Yorkville Ives.

“While Jensen is at the hearts and lungs of the Nvidia story, the company and its leading-edge (General Processing Unit) technology will go on and it does not change the entrenched position Nvidia has in the… chip arms race,” he wrote in a note.

Was Nvidia's CEO honey-trapped?

CNN’s Will Ripley examines a centuries-old espionage tactic and why the race for advanced AI chips is making Silicon Valley’s biggest names prime intelligence targets.

The US believes Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was targeted by Chinese intelligence — a claim China denies — raising questions about how foreign spy agencies may try to steal information from the world's most powerful tech executives. CNN’s Will Ripley examines a centuries-old espionage tactic and why the race for advanced AI chips is making Silicon Valley's biggest names prime intelligence targets.

Who are Huang's children, who could replace him as CEO?

The potential ouster of Jensen Huang from his position as CEO of the company he helped found 33 years ago has trained the spotlight on two potential successors: his children.

Spencer and Madison Huang both occupy senior roles in the more than $4 trillion company.

According to their LinkedIn profiles, Spencer works as a director in the robotics division and Madison works as a senior marketing director. They have been at Nvidia since 2022 and 2020, respectively.

Madison has an MBA from London Business School and previously worked in a marketing role at luxury giant LVMH in Paris. Her LinkedIn says she spent time at the prestigious Cordon Bleu culinary school in France. She is also reportedly married to Nico Caprez, an executive on Nvidia’s growth team.

Spencer’s profile says he has held marketing and strategy roles at other firms and spent eight years running a cocktail bar in Taipei, Taiwan.

But in an interview with Bloomberg last month, Huang said he wouldn’t wish the job on his daughter in response to rumors that Madison is a potential candidate. “If that’s their aspiration… they have to go earn it. It’s really really hard work, it takes a lot of sacrifice,” he told the outlet.

Huang shares his children with Lori Huang, his wife of more than 40 years.

Nvidia's stock looks set for another bruising day

Nvidia’s shares look set for another day of declines, reversing a modest bounce Wednesday and adding to losses over the week as questions swirl over the future of the company’s CEO, Jensen Huang.

The stock was down 5.5% in premarket trading shortly before 5 a.m. ET. Nvidia’s share price has fallen nearly 7% since Friday after a report that Huang had an affair with a woman that US officials believe was working as a spy for China.

Sources told CNN on Wednesday that Nvidia’s board is now weighing Huang’s future following a new report that he also had an affair with a company executive. Analysts are now questioning who could replace him as CEO.

“A decision to oust the key man in the AI space would be a big negative for the stock and the broader sector,” Neil Wilson, a strategist at investment bank Saxo wrote in a morning note.

Wider fallout? The question now, according to Wilson, is whether firing Huang “nerfs the broader rally in tech stocks.”

For now, premarket trading in other tech stocks looks mixed. Some of Nvidia’s chipmaking rivals, including AMD and Broadcom, pointed to a stronger opening, while Intel and Marvell Technology looked set to open lower.

Here's a timeline of key events

Nvidia’s board is weighing CEO Jensen Huang’s future as its leader, following a rough few days for the embattled CEO. Here is how Huang, and Nvidia, got here.

Jensen Huang has long been a bridge between the US and China

Nvidia chief Jensen Huang may have unwittingly found himself in the middle of a spy scandal involving Chinese spies and American chips – but he has long positioned himself as a bridge between the two rival countries and top economies.

Huang moved from Taiwan to Thailand as a child and then to the United States – a background that gave him the language and cultural understanding needed to navigate business in both the US and in China.

As Huang grew closer to President Donald Trump, he also gained visibility with Beijing; when Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a state visit in September, Huang was among several top tech executives having dinner at the head table with Trump and Xi.

And Huang joined Trump during a layover in Alaska on the way to Beijing in May, accompanying him and his top aides on Air Force One. A source told CNN that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had briefed Trump on intelligence that Huang was in a relationship with a potential Chinese spy before the Nvidia CEO got on the plane – though Trump on Monday publicly denied knowing about the allegations at that time.

It was during that visit to Beijing that Huang charmed much of the Chinese internet – and watchers around the world – when he took himself on an impromptu food tour of the Chinese capital.

“Jensen, how do you like China?” a woman is heard asking him in one video. “I love China,” he responded.

Huang has spent over 3 decades building Nvidia

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has spent more than three decades building a company that has made him one of the most powerful figures in tech.

If you walked into a San Jose, California, branch of Denny’s a couple of years ago, you may have spotted a sign above one of the diner’s red booths: “THE BOOTH THAT LAUNCHED A $2 TRILLION COMPANY.”

It was there, in 1993, that Huang cooked up the idea for Nvidia with co-founders and fellow electrical engineers Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky.

The trio wanted to design semiconductor chips that could create more realistic graphics for video games, signing a deal with Japanese gaming developer Sega. But they made a strategic blunder within their first decade that nearly tanked the firm: They had designed an unconventional 3D chip that few developers could use. It was a costly mistake, helping send Nvidia hurtling toward bankruptcy. An eleventh-hour $5 million investment from Sega provided Nvidia a crucial lifeline.

Nvidia spent the next decade in gaming. But by the mid-aughts, Huang realized that some of its chips – containing processing units that could perform many calculations in tandem – could have applications beyond gaming.

It developed CUDA, software that allowed computer programmers to use its chips more generally. In 2016, Huang was filmed delivering Nvidia’s first AI supercomputer to Elon Musk, the co-founder of what was then a little-known research lab called OpenAI.

A few years later, when OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public, Nvidia was already in position to capitalize on the ensuing boom.

Jensen Huang's future in the balance after reports of another affair. Here's the latest

Nvidia’s board is weighing the future of founder Jensen Huang, two sources told CNN, as the tech giant investigates allegations that threaten to tarnish his legacy.

The board’s deliberation comes after a report that the CEO is said to have had a relationship with the company’s vice president of healthcare Kimberly Powell, who has been at the chip behemoth since 2008.

There was some expectation among Trump administration insiders that Huang would be ousted, the sources said.

Mounting scandal: Earlier this week, Nvidia’s board said it would investigate whether Huang was the “target of a foreign intelligence effort” amid reports that he had a relationship with Alice Huang, a woman US officials believe to be a Chinese spy. The CEO apologized Sunday for an extramarital affair, although he did not name the other party. Here’s what we know about Alice Huang.

Nvidia’s Code of Conduct lays out how employees, business partners and managers are expected to act with integrity and avoid conflicts of interest.

Stocks tumble: Nvidia shares dropped sharply in after-hours trading. The tech giant has shed more than $300 billion in market value this week alone.

Trump’s take: President Donald Trump has stood by Huang, saying Monday that he spoke with the CEO, who denied knowing the woman was allegedly a spy. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed Trump on intelligence that Huang was in a relationship with a potential Chinese spy as they traveled to China, a source told CNN. Trump on Monday publicly denied knowing about the allegations at that time.

The scandal comes as Trump prepares for a trip to Shenzhen, the Chinese tech and innovation hub, where he is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The allegations that China’s spy service targeted Huang will have far-reaching implications for the US-China race to dominate AI. Here’s why.

Who could lead Nvidia next? Analysts are now questioning who could replace the CEO, since the company has no clear public succession plan in place.

Here’s a timeline of the scandal, and the major company milestones that preceded it.

CNN’s Hadas Gold, John Towfighi, Stephanie Yang, Anna Cooban, Clare Duffy, Jessie Yeung, Isaac Yee, Kylie Atwood and Kevin Liptak contributed reporting.

Beijing says espionage claims are excuse for American "technological blockade on China"

Beijing has again denied allegations of espionage on Thursday, after having previously rejected claims that Alice Huang had worked as a Chinese spy while in a relationship with Jensen Huang.

“We have already made our position clear on the so-called claims of ‘Chinese espionage.’ China’s technological advances are driven by independent innovation and open cooperation,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters at a regular briefing.

He added that the US and China were “maintaining close communication regarding interactions between the two countries’ leaders,” and that Beijing was “ready to work with the US to properly implement the important common understandings reached by the two heads of state.”

The Nvidia espionage allegations come at a particularly awkward time. US President Donald Trump is heading to Shenzhen next week for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping for the third time this year.