SANTA CLARA, California: Nvidia has named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO and begun the search for a permanent successor to co-founder Jensen Huang, who stepped down on November 12 after revelations of two extramarital affairs, including one involving a suspected Chinese spy.

The company said it is considering both internal and external candidates. Huang will also leave the board. Nvidia named former Synopsys CEO and longtime director Harvey Jones as its first board chair.

The exit caps a tumultuous week for one of the major engines behind the AI boom. It could have far-reaching consequences for US chip export policy and the broader AI ecosystem, given Huang's push to preserve access to the Chinese market and his close ties with US President Donald Trump.

"The Board, Estaff (executive staff) and I recognize that this has been an extraordinarily difficult period," Kress wrote in a memo to employees, adding that the company will host a meeting on November 18.

Kress was gathering Nvidia's executive team at its headquarters on November 12, CNBC reported, adding that Huang had agreed to testify before Congress before Thanksgiving.

Kress and longtime Nvidia engineer Ian Buck had emerged as the leading internal candidates among investors and analysts even before Huang's departure. While Kress offers investors a familiar hand after 13 years as CFO, analysts have pointed to Buck as a potential longer-term candidate because of Nvidia's reliance on technical leadership. The veteran engineer helped develop its crucial CUDA software platform and now leads its hyperscale AI products.

"The risk is not that Nvidia suddenly loses its technology roadmap ... that roadmap is largely visible for the next several years. The risk is execution. Jensen has been the chief conductor of an extraordinarily complex system," said Michael Feldman, portfolio manager at ClearBridge Investments.

On November 12, Trump suggested former Apple CEO Tim Cook should take over as Nvidia's CEO. On November 8, he had said Huang had "done an amazing job for our country" and that the Nvidia chief had told him he had no idea the Chinese woman he had an affair with was a spy.

The crisis has threatened to implicate some Trump administration members, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who is facing growing questions over the administration's oversight of chip sales to China. Regarding Lutnick, a White House official said he still had confidence in the secretary. The Commerce Department did not immediately comment.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson said it was "critically important for right successor to be chosen to replace Huang", noting there was a growing consensus in Congress on limiting exports of semiconductor chips to China.

Pressure had been mounting on Huang, 63, who is married, after reports said he had an affair with a Chinese businesswoman whom US authorities suspect of spying for Beijing. The scandal unfolded over more than a year, beginning with an October 2025 New York Times report linking him to Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, a coveted official Nvidia cloud partner with priority access to its chips. Subsequent reports said US intelligence officials believed Alice Huang was acting on behalf of Chinese intelligence. Beijing has denied Alice Huang is a spy.

Earlier this month, Nvidia's board launched a probe, led by independent directors with outside legal counsel, into whether Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, and expressed confidence in him at the time. The controversy escalated on November 11 when the New York Times reported Huang also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reported to him.