Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns: Live updates

University of Colorado Law professor Ann Lipton, a corporate law and governance expert, said that following Huang’s resignation, the Nvidia board will need to “move swiftly” to present a succession plan, which will be difficult given Huang’s centrality to the business.

The board should also “make clear to investors that it is on top of the situation,” and how it is filling holes left in Huang’s absence.

The CEO’s resignation, Lipton said in an e-mail, “demonstrates the seriousness of the underlying allegations, and will strengthen any shareholder claims regarding damages, the importance of any misrepresentations, and Huang’s likely knowledge of the truth. ” 

Following reports that Huang had an affair with a purported Chinese spy, Rosen Law Firm in New York filed a proposed class action lawsuit on behalf of investors who saw the value of their Nvidia stock decline rapidly.

Rosen Law attorney Phillip Kim told CNBC in an e-mail that investor interest in joining the class action has been high. “It’s a widely held stock,” he wrote. In just a few days, he added, “several hundreds of investors” had contacted his firm, ranging “from mom and pops to investors with very large losses.”

— Lora Kolodny

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump’s reported reaction to troubling U.S. intelligence about Huang demands scrutiny.

“All the reports say that Trump knew what took place and just basically made it like it was no big deal,” Meeks said when asked if Trump was too trusting of Huang, his close ally.

“Those are the things that have to be looked at,” Meeks said.

When asked if Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick or Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler should be called to testify, Meeks said, “Look, I think that anybody that could answer some questions, anybody that might have been involved.”

“If it’s up to me, I’m going to at least have some questions or some hearings. The American people need to know,” he added.

— Kevin Breuninger and Justin Papp

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Huang’s departure does not obviate the need for him and Nvidia to answer to Congress.

“Despite Jensen Huang’s resignation, Congress must demand answers from Mr. Huang and others at Nvidia about how they may have put U.S. national security at risk,” Schumer wrote in an X post.

“The Trump administration must also answer for what it did once it learned about Mr. Huang’s relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset,” Schumer wrote. 

“Were government officials told not to investigate because of Trump’s relationship with Mr. Huang? What did Trump know when he personally invited Mr. Huang aboard Air Force One? Americans deserve to know that those at the highest levels of power are putting America first, not their bottom line or their personal friendships,” the Senate leader wrote.

— Kevin Breuninger

Democratic leaders on the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee are launching an investigation into the Trump administration’s approval for the export of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to Chinese government-linked companies.

Their letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announcing the probe was sent by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the respective ranking members of the Senate and House committees.

Wyden and Neal noted that, despite Trump’s reported knowledge of U.S. intelligence showing Huang was in a relationship with a Chinese spy, his administration “did not appear to acknowledge this evident national security threat.”

“On the contrary: despite reportedly learning of Mr. Huang’s compromising relationship last fall, President Trump granted Nvidia permission to sell its advanced H200 AI chips to China in December 2025 in exchange for a cut of the export sales,” the letter read.

They described a “scheme” in which Trump would let Nvidia sell Taiwanese H200 chips to Chinese companies, provided they undergo a security review in the U.S. and receive an export license, subjecting them to 25% U.S. tariffs.

“The Trump Administration’s ostensible attempt to mask an unconstitutional export tax as a national security tariff action — benefitting both Nvidia and the Chinese government — raises serious concerns within our Committees’ jurisdiction over matters relating to taxation and tariffs,” they wrote.

— Kevin Breuninger

Jensen Huang’s $140 billion Nvidia stake is largely held by trusts that are co-owned with his wife, Lori, according to SEC filings.

The arrangement further complicates Huang’s sudden exit from the company, but could prove to be a stabilizing force for the shares, since the trusts make it more difficult for either Huang or his wife to quickly sell, lawyers told CNBC.

Here is why ultra-rich founders use these trusts and how they could work in the event of a divorce.

— Hayley Cuccinello

Employees inside Nvidia are struggling to come to grips with long-tenured CEO Jensen Huang’s departure, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

But the mood at the company is “more complicated” than the headlines depict, according to the person, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The person described employees in tears, noting that many had come to idolize Huang and regard him as integral to Nvidia’s identity.

The person also sensed a “more nervous energy” around leadership and expressed concerns that the noise around Huang’s affairs could impact execution.

The board, they said, is in a difficult position, figuring out how to protect Huang and the company, while also ensuring it doesn’t drag down the business.

— Samantha Subin, Spriha Srivastava

Beyond its impact on Nvidia, Huang’s departure has deep ramifications for the AI industry that has turned him into a global spokesperson and celebrity, traversing the globe in his trademark leather jacket, touting the power of advanced chips, models and agents.

Huang has seeded the market with numerous companies that buy Nvidia GPUs, building his company’s influence and establishing a deep roster of customers, beyond the hyperscalers. Nvidia has used its balance sheet to backstop leases and chip sales, and has become the centerpiece of the industry, acting as technology supplier, customer, investor, financier and partner to scores of AI companies.

“He’s Mr. AI. He speaks for the industry,” said Jeff Christian, CEO of Christian and Timbers, an executive search firm. “He’s connected financially to everybody either through partnerships, or through lending the money to buy chips.”

— Kif Leswing

Nvidia’s growing credit support mechanisms for its customers, often offered in the form of a backstop on a loan or other type of debt facility, have come under question in recent months as the chipmaker’s exposure has ballooned.

According to its last quarterly financial filing in July, Nvidia had $36 billion in off-balance-sheet backstops for neoclouds, as well as $20 billion dedicated to leases it had signed with the intention of renting out data center capacity. That’s all in addition to the whopping $105 backstop deal Nvidia offered OpenAI to rent SB Energy’s planned Ohio mega data center campus in August.

In recent months, Nvidia’s standards for its partners to require a backstop have become more stringent. The Information reported that CFO Colette Kress was against the $105 billion OpenAI deal, for example.

Adil Malik, a partner at Origin Partners, a digital infrastructure-focused M&A advisory firm, says he noticed a change in the standards Nvidia needed to support a backstop for his clients around three months ago.

“The offtake language before, maybe a non-binding LOI (letter of intent) from an offtaker would be enough, and it didn’t have to be a very well known one that’s an established company or AAA rated,” he said, stating that now, a letter of intent “is usually not good enough. There has to be some level of offtake commitment, whether it’s a binding LOI or ideally an executed offtake contract. Binding LOIs have been even extremely difficult now.”

— Isabel O’Brien

Nvidia’s fortunes exploded after OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, leading to soaring demand for the chipmaker’s graphics processing units, or GPUs. Nvidia’s stock is up about 14-fold since then, even with a recent pullback related to the Huang scandal and the broader sell-off in the AI trade.

— Kif Leswing

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Democrats are investigating the Huang spy scandal as they prepare to take over majority control of the House and Senate.

The incoming Democratic chairs of the House intelligence and foreign affairs committees “are leading the effort to get to the bottom of what has happened,” said Jeffries, who is poised to be House speaker in the next Congress.

“There certainly are more questions than answers,” Jeffries said at a press conference on Capitol Hill.

“We need a classified briefing made available to members of Congress as it relates to the Nvidia situation,” Jeffries added. “And to the extent that our national security has been compromised, the American people deserve answers, and we’re going to work to make sure that happens.”

Asked by CNBC for his reaction to Huang’s resignation, Jeffries said it “was the right thing to do.”

“Now we have to get to the bottom of whether America’s national security has been compromised,” Jeffries said.

— Kevin Breuninger and Irit Skulnik

Analysts are growing bearish on Nvidia after an espionage scandal led to the exit of the company’s CEO and co-founder, Jensen Huang.

Several shops on the Street downgraded the artificial intelligence infrastructure stock, citing the leadership questions that are swirling around Nvidia in the wake of the scandal.

“We find it hard to advocate stepping in here in size as there will no doubt be more allegations to come (there is a trope that says if you find two ants in your kitchen the best estimate of the total number of ants in your kitchen is not two…), both from internal issues as well as headlines related to the business, new governmental investigations etc.,” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said Thursday in a note to clients.

Keybanc analyst John Vinh echoed that sentiment in his own note to clients.

“We believe Huang’s departure represents a material increase in strategic, organizational, and execution risk that warrants a higher risk premium and lower valuation multiple for the stock,” Vinh wrote. “While we expect core fundamentals to remain strong for the foreseeable future, we believe it will be challenging for NVDA to find a successor with the same leadership and strategic vision as Huang.”

Huang had emerged as one of Trump’s closest allies in the AI build-out.

In May, Huang joined Trump on a trip to China, and in August, while on stage at the All-In Summit to discuss AI safety and regulation, he took a call from Trump and put him on speakerphone.

“I’m with you all the way,” Trump told Huang and the audience.

With Democrats poised to take over both houses of Congress and promising to investigate various matters related to Nvidia, Huang’s status in Washington, D.C., was poised to change dramatically even before the affairs became public.

— Kif Leswing

Interim CEO Colette Kress will gather the company’s executive team today at the chipmaker’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

Kress will discuss leadership and continuity plans with the group of high-level executives, according to the person, who asked not to be named because the details are confidential.

— Seema Mody, Annie Palmer

House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast, R-Fla. told reporters on Thursday that former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will testify before Congress ahead of Thanksgiving.

“He has agreed to come,” Mast said. “We’re in negotiations for which day.”

The hearing will likely be under oath and transcribed, with multiple committees involved.

Mast said he told Huang that he would “subpoena him” if necessary.

Mast said Congress isn’t ruling out “public hearings for other people or other things down road.”

— Samantha Subin

Retail traders rushed in to buy Nvidia shares following Jensen Huang’s resignation, with the stock drawing the biggest opening bid from individual traders ever recorded by Vanda Research. In the first 30 minutes of the regular session, retail traders bought a net $111 million of Nvidia shares, more than 40x a normal open.

The buying on Thursday follows multiple days of strong retail demand for the chipmaker’s stock. It was the most heavily bought security across Vanda’s universe Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, commanding multiple times more net buying than the next most-bought security. NVDA has accounted for 61% of all retail net buying this week.

Demand has also spilled over into leveraged products: Retail investors put $42.5 million into six 2x long Nvidia ETFs from Monday through Wednesday, one of the largest three-day inflows on record, Vanda said.

— Nick Wells

Jensen Huang denied allegations that he had compromised national security or Nvidia secrets after reports of the Alice Huang affair.

The news sparked concerns that Nvidia knew companies based in Singapore and Malaysia had been evading U.S. export controls in accessing its technology.

The board said on Tuesday that it had hired Wachtell Lipton to investigate the intelligence allegations.

— Kif Leswing

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he expects Congress to conduct oversight of the Jensen Huang affair even after the embattled tech CEO’s resignation.

“In this environment where there’s some really high stakes when it comes to our national security, I would expect there would be some follow-up, yeah,” Thune said when asked by reporters if there would be congressional investigations into the matter.

Thune earlier this week was reelected Senate Republican leader. The GOP will be in the minority come January, after Democrats won at least 55 seats in the upper chamber.

— Garrett Downs

Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue lamented Huang’s ouster from Nvidia, writing in a LinkedIn post that it’s “a really sad day.”

Nvidia in September agreed to acquire Hugging Face, a leading platform for open-source AI models, in a deal worth about $12.9 billion. The company expects the deal to close in the first half of 2027.

“This whole thing sucks, and I wish none of it had happened,” Delangue wrote. “It’s a really sad day!”

He continued, “But I want to make one thing clear: we’ll keep fighting for open-source AI, harder than ever. This is too important to slow down now. Let’s go!”

The Hugging Face deal, which is the second-largest in Nvidia’s history, has attracted scrutiny from regulators. CNBC previously reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is probing the acquisition and how it could impact competition in the AI market.

— Annie Palmer

House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast, R-Fla., told reporters on Thursday that he still has confidence in Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick despite reporting this week that he stalled President Donald Trump’s crackdowns on firms routing Nvidia chips to China.

Mast also said he wanted Congress to investigate the role of the Bureau of Industry and Security, a subagency of the Commerce Department that manages and enforces export controls, in the Huang scandal.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that the company’s general counsel, Tim Teter, claimed in emails to commerce investigators looking into Alice Huang’s company that he’d been in touch with Jeffrey Kessler, who leads BIS. The commerce investigation into Huang’s company, Megaspeed, was then transferred to the Justice Department.

“The people that we deal with in BIS, those are the ones that are at the granular level of dealing with Nvidia and chips,” Mast said.

Mast said he hadn’t spoken to Lutnick or Kessler since the revelations.

— Justin Papp

Creative Strategies CEO Ben Bajarin called Huang a “trendsetter” and said his exit creates “a huge shakeup and an impact to the industry.”

“Anytime … you lose a founder-level-type of charisma who really has been looked upon as the, this trendsetter for the industry, the spokesperson for this moment that we have in this technology build out, that’s going to be a loss,” Bajarin told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Thursday.

Uncertainty over who will ultimately take the helm at Nvidia only adds to the challenge, according to the Creative Strategies CEO. Bajarin sees VP of Nvidia’s data center business Ian Buck as the most logical candidate to be Huang’s permanent replacement, with an internal pick likely preferable to an external candidate.

“You have to have deep semiconductor expertise … it’s a very short list of people who can do that at this scale.”

“What they need to bring back is somebody who can normalize things and be that type of person who can keep the troops aligned, keep them convicted on what they’re doing in their engineering, and preserve that culture,” Bajarin said.

— Caleigh Keating

Nvidia could face sustained selling pressure as investors reassess the value of Jensen Huang’s leadership, according to Michael Landsberg, chief investment officer at Landsberg Bennett Private Wealth Management.

Landsberg described Huang’s resignation as the worst-case scenario. While he called CFO Colette Kress highly capable and respected, he questioned how the innovation of Nvidia will evolve without Jensen.

“Part of the value proposition of this stock was not just its chips, but Jensen’s vision and ability to steer the company,” Landsberg said. “The stock is now pricing in a leadership discount, as the Jensen premium evaporates,” he said, adding that while it is possible for Nvidia to navigate this storm, it’s likely going to take time.

Landsberg said Nvidia can survive without Huang, but warned that “it may not be the star company and stock that it has been for the past three years.”

— Deena Zaidi

Jensen Huang’s resignation could bode well for Nvidia shares, according to Jeremiah Buckley, equities portfolio manager at Janus Henderson.

“I think you could argue, given where the stock is, that this could be a clearing event for the company,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Thursday.

Buckley said Nvidia sits in a strong financial position and keeping its strong talent pool remains “extremely important” in the next phase.

“We think visibility is extremely high for 2027,” he said. “That demand continues to be really strong. We think the product roadmap is solidified through 2028.”

— Samantha Subin

Nvidia has become one of the most prolific investors in the AI ecosystem, and Huang’s ouster raises questions about whether the company will continue to shell out capital to other AI startups.

It faces its first major test next week, as the AI lab Anthropic readies for what is largely expected to be a blockbuster IPO. Nvidia has invested billions in Anthropic to date, and the chipmaker has agreed to purchase another $10 billion worth of its Class N common stock immediately following the offering, Anthropic said in an amended prospectus on Tuesday.

The shares Nvidia would purchase are part of a private placement that will not be registered in the offering, the filing said.

Anthropic will list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ANT.” The company is planning to begin trading on Nov. 19, as CNBC previously reported.

—Ashley Capoot

Intel, Marvell and other stocks in which Nvidia has invested in traded lower following Huang’s ouster.

Shares of Intel and Marvell both slumped more than 4%, while Synopsys stock fell 3%. Coherent stock also slid roughly 4%, and Lumentum stock fell 5%. Nebius shares dropped more than 19% after it reported earnings, and CoreWeave‘s stock slid roughly 9%.

Under Huang’s leadership, Nvidia has become a significant backer of technology companies across the AI ecosystem.

The chipmaker invested $5 billion in Intel last September and said it would team up to develop data center and PC chips with its beleaguered peer. Nvidia also invested roughly $2 billion each in Nebius, Marvell, Lumentum, Coherent and CoreWeave through a series of deals announced over the past year.

Nvidia has also announced equity investments in several of the frontier AI labs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX‘s xAI.

— Annie Palmer

Trump weighed in on the ouster of his closest corporate ally — and suggested another one should take his place.

“NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“A Legend replaces a Legend!” Trump wrote.

—Kevin Breuninger

Jensen Huang’s exit from Nvidia creates a new opportunity for top chip rival Advanced Micro Devices. AMD shares were up nearly 17% since Monday, when the markets opened to news of Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy.

As a top competitor to Nvidia, AMD is the only other company that makes a full rack-scale system for AI. Its Helios racks compete directly with Nvidia Vera Rubin racks.

While Nvidia’s systems have long led the industry, companies are seeking alternatives to the costly, supply-constrained Nvidia chips. AMD’s Helios is now deployed at Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle.

“AMD is clearly the immediate beneficiary. But people need to realize AMD can’t just instantly ramp up massive additional volume even if customers look to move its way,” said Daniel Newman, CEO of the Futurum Group.

Amid market jitters over Nvidia’s leadership shakeup, more demand could trickle down to AMD. The question is whether AMD can supply everyone who comes.

“If everyone turned tomorrow and went to AMD, AMD couldn’t supply. We know this,” Newman told CNBC in an interview.

Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, is Jensen Huang’s first cousin once removed. Huang confirmed they are cousins at an event in 2024.

WATCH: Exclusive first look at Helios, AMD’s first AI system to rival Nvidia Vera Rubin

— Katie Tarasov

Huang is willing to testify before Congress as soon as next week, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast, R-Fla., told reporters on Thursday, soon after the Nvidia CEO resigned.

Mast, Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., who leads the House intelligence panel, and Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., who chairs the House China Select Committee, had requested Huang’s appearance before the three committees in a Nov. 4 letter. They gave Huang and Nvidia until the end of day Wednesday to respond.

“We heard back from their team last night,” Mast said. “We’re negotiating which day it’s going to be.”

Mast said the parameters of the briefing are still being worked out. It’s not clear at this time whether Huang would testify publicly or in a closed-door setting. But Mast said the committees are urging his testimony soon.

“We want to see him basically in a week,” Mast said. “Sooner rather than later.”

Mast said that subpoenaing Huang is also not off the table.

“If negotiations shut off and we don’t think they’re in good faith — okay, fine, do that. I’ll just subpoena you for the next day,” Mast said.

— Justin Papp

The White House defended Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday following reports that he repeatedly blocked President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on efforts to smuggle Nvidia chips into China.

“Secretary Lutnick is a champion of President Trump’s America First trade and tariff policies, which have secured almost 20 fair trade deals and trillions in manufacturing investments,” a White House official told CNBC in a statement. “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.”

Lutnick has also clashed with Trump administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, over why the Commerce Department did not place Megaspeed on its trade restriction list, according to Axios.

—Ashley Capoot and Megan Cassella

OpenAI has raised $15 billion in its latest funding round at a $1.25 trillion valuation, sources told CNBC’s David Faber.

Nvidia has invested at least $30 billion in OpenAI. Ahead of its expected IPO in 2027, OpenAI has continued to raise capital despite blockbuster revenue growth due to large amounts of spending.

Whether the frontier AI lab would attempt to continue to raise more capital was unclear. OpenAI was originally planning to raise up to $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation in the latest funding effort, before pulling back. The announcement also comes as its chief rival, Anthropic, prepares to go public next week.

— Caleigh Keating

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas shared a post on X thanking Huang for 33 years of “bold leadership.” Nvidia is an investor in the company.

“You built a small startup into America’s most valuable company, with relentless improvement,” Srinivas wrote. “Your grit and perseverance should always be remembered. Your personal generosity with time and advice to founders like me has secured a bright future for America and AI.”

—Ashley Capoot

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the co-founder of crypto exchange Binance, said Nvidia should not let Huang go.

“It’s a mistake for Nvidia to let Jensen resign,” Zhao wrote on X.

Zhao in 2023 resigned as CEO of Binance while pleading guilty to money-laundering-related charges. He was pardoned in October 2025 by Trump, who made roughly $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency-related ventures that year.

— Kevin Breuninger

Since the dramatic revelations over the weekend, analysts have been slashing their price targets on Nvidia’s stock in anticipation of major changes at the top ranks. At least 10 Wall Street analysts have turned more bearish this week, according to FactSet.

“With no successor publicly identified, we would focus on who leads and on what timeline, retention of senior leadership, and channel and export-compliance posture,” analysts at Stifel wrote in a note on Wednesday. They lowered their target to $205 from $315, but kept their buy rating.

The stock is currently trading about $160.

Baird analysts on Wednesday cut their target price by more than half, from $500 to $200, and downgraded the stock to neutral, “until uncertainties regarding U.S. government action likely resulting from the upcoming congressional hearing are lifted.”

—Ari Levy

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said that Huang’s resignation doesn’t change the fact that Congress still needs answers.

“Jensen Huang’s decision to resign does not absolve him, other executives, or the company as a whole of responsibility for putting our national security at risk,” she said in a statement.

Warren, who is poised to lead the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, said that Huang and Nvidia’s higher ups will still owe Congress an explanation about the company’s compliance with export controls.

“It’s clear that the American people cannot rely on Big Tech billionaire CEOs to put our national security above their bottom line,” Warren said.

Warren also called on Congress to pass the AI Overwatch act, giving Congress oversight over advanced AI chip exports.

“Secretary Howard Lutnick and Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler must explain why they have not closed export control loopholes and act today to ensure our advanced technology is not fueling China’s military,” Warren said.

— Irit Skulnik

Shares of neoclouds, which heavily rely on Nvidia’s GPUs, tumbled following Huang’s resignation on Thursday.

CoreWeave’s stock sank nearly 12%, IREN shares fell 8%, and Nebius’ stock sank 17%.

Nebius reported third-quarter results on Thursday that beat analysts’ expectations, but the company issued disappointing guidance.

—Ashley Capoot

Colette Kress has taken the helm as interim CEO, but it’s a role that will likely only last a year. That’s according to Dan Ives, analyst at Yorkville Ives & Co., in an interview with CNBC before the news was announced.

“To steady the ship, she’s the one,” Ives said. “But longer term, probably someone from the outside.”

Kress will likely be in the interim CEO role for about a year, Ives said.

“You need someone that’s been on the global stage,” Ives said. “Given the importance of the company not just in the U.S. tech industry but the global economy.”

— Katie Tarasov

Before Jensen Huang resigned from Nvidia, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, in a post on X, that it would be “an honor” to hire the embattled Nvidia founder.

Musk also agreed with Gavin Baker, chief investment officer of Atreides Management, who wrote in a post on X that “Nvidia’s board should wait for the results of the investigation before ousting Jensen.”

SpaceX is one of Nvidia’s largest customers, and Nvidia invested in SpaceX via an equity investment in Musk’s xAI, which is now known as SpaceXSI.

In August, during a SpaceX earnings call, Musk said Nvidia had the “best AI compute” and announced SpaceX would become an Nvidia-exclusive shop, using its Vera Rubin processors to build out massive data centers.

Musk and SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Huang’s resignation.

—Lora Kolodny

Nvidia’s stock plunged over 13% at the open. The chip giant dropped below $4 trillion in market cap, accelerating a sharp decline so far this week. The move puts Nvidia on pace for its worst day since January 2025.

— Caleigh Keating and Nick Wells

Nvidia’s market value has plunged by $2 trillion since the chipmaker’s stock peaked in early October.

Shares closed at $173.73 on Wednesday, down from a closing high of $239.24 on Oct. 6.

Since Friday’s close, Nvidia has lost more than $740 billion in market value.

— Samantha Subin, Nick Wells

Minutes before Huang’s ouster, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer suggested to CNBC that the U.S. AI buildout won’t be dragged down by the scandal smothering Nvidia.

“Obviously, Nvidia is a structurally important company,” Greer told “Squawk Box,” acknowledging the AI giant’s recent stock “fluctuations” in light of its CEO crisis.

“The reality is the AI buildout, data centers, the next industrial revolution — that’s happening,” he said.

“From time to time, you have scandal, or you have developments at companies with leadership, et cetera,” Greer went on, noting that government regulators who monitor “potential problems” have taken action in recent years on “a variety of issues.”

“And obviously, we remain concerned,” he added. “We want to make sure that when we’re selling our chips to the world, we want the world to be on the AI stack, but we want the crown jewels to remain in U.S. hands or in the hands of our allies.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Huang’s resignation is putting a spotlight on the web of financial relationships he built throughout the artificial intelligence agency. Nvidia’s obligations to other firms — estimated at $400 billion — have earned the company the nickname “the central bank of AI.” Problems at Nvidia have the potential to ripple out across the financial system through what are known as “circular financing” arrangements.

Officials at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere are watching closely but — for now — don’t see any imminent danger to the financial system. Stock investors may take sharp losses, to be sure. But Nvidia is not “too big to fail in a bank sense at all,” Sheila Bair, a former regulator and veteran of the financial crisis, told CNBC. 

— Matt Peterson

Nvidia’s board will begin a search for a permanent CEO to replace Huang.

The company said it will consider both internal and external candidates in its search.

Analysts have pointed to several internal leaders as potential replacements for Huang, including CFO Kress; Ian Buck, Nvidia’s VP and GM of Hyperscale; Bryan Catanzaro, VP of Applied Deep Learning; Chief Technology Officer Michael Kagan; and Bill Dally, Chief Scientist.

— Annie Palmer

Nvidia reiterated plans to announce fiscal third-quarter results on Nov. 17 despite the CEO transition.

The company plans to post results around 1:20 p.m. PT and host an earnings call at 2 p.m. PT.

— Samantha Subin

Nvidia named Harvey C. Jones to serve as its “first-ever” board chair.

He joined Nvidia’s board in 1993, the year it was founded, and is a former CEO and chairman of chip-design software maker Synopsys. He also co-founded two other technology companies, Daisy Systems and Tensilica, and since 2004, Jones has been a managing partner at Square Weave Ventures, a private investment firm.

— Annie Palmer

Nvidia’s new interim CEO Colette Kress has worked at the artificial intelligence chipmaker since September 2013 and currently serves as executive vice president and finance chief.

Before Nvidia, Kress held senior roles at Microsoft and worked as finance chief within Cisco’s business tech and operations finance unit. She also did a stint at Texas Instruments.

Kress holds a finance degree from the University of Arizona and a master’s in business administration from Southern Methodist University.

The company said Kress will continue to serve as Executive Vice President and CFO while acting as interim CEO until a permanent successor has been named.

— Samantha Subin

“Jensen’s contributions to NVIDIA are profound. NVIDIA is one of the most consequential technology companies in the world. The Board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry.”

—Chris Eudaily

Nvidia shares are headed for their sixth straight weekly drop, the longest slump since 2012. That includes a 9% decline last week tied to the midterm election results.

As of Wednesday’s close, the shares were down about 7% this year, the steepest slide among all the tech megacaps other than Tesla. Because of the selloff, Nvidia has fallen behind Apple in the ranks of the world’s largest companies.

— Ari Levy

Huang was born in Taiwan but grew up in the U.S. and is an American citizen. He founded Nvidia to make chips for computer graphics, both for video games and rendering. In the early 2000s, Huang and other executives saw an opportunity to allow scientists to use the company’s GPUs to do computationally-intense work.

That technology eventually allowed Nvidia’s chips to transform from a leading player in video game technology to the most important player in AI and a key American asset for national defense.

His fame in Taiwan is so great than when he returns home, “Jensanity” surrounds him.

— Kif Leswing