Nvidia shares dropped as much as 11% on Thursday, November 12, 2026 after founder Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive officer and board member, effective immediately. The chipmaker named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO while she retains her CFO duties, and the board appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever chair.
The leadership shake-up followed days of scrutiny over Huang's personal conduct and an independent board investigation announced on November 8 into reports that he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort. Nvidia said at that time it had no reason to believe national security or proprietary information had been compromised. Huang separately acknowledged marital infidelity in a message to employees. The company did not establish that proprietary information was compromised or that related allegations had been proven.
The board said customer commitments, operations and product roadmap are expected to continue without interruption, but it has not announced a timetable for naming a permanent CEO. Kress has been CFO since September 2013 and has overseen Nvidia's financial expansion into AI infrastructure, giving her continuity in financial management as the company searches for a permanent successor.
The resignation triggered a broader selloff in AI-related equities. AMD rose more than 3% and Broadcom also gained as investors weighed whether competitors could benefit from uncertainty at Nvidia. In contrast, AI cloud provider CoreWeave fell about 10% in premarket trading, Nebius declined, and Intel and TSMC lost more than 2%. ASML moved lower, while Sandisk dropped roughly 5% and Micron and SK Hynix lost about 4%.
The next major test is Nvidia's fiscal third-quarter 2027 earnings on November 17. Investors will focus on AI accelerator demand, data center revenue growth and whether management maintains its prior outlook. While the immediate risk is leadership continuity rather than a confirmed deterioration in chip demand, the succession decision and board investigation findings will shape how investors value that risk. For crypto markets, the shock is primarily a sentiment event for AI-linked digital assets, with no cryptocurrency directly named in the disclosures.
