Huang Quits, Kress Takes Nvidia Helm

TechCrunch first reported the move from Nvidia’s announcement and regulatory filing, which said the board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday. The change ends a 33-year run for the founder who turned Nvidia from a graphics-chip maker into the company collecting a remarkable share of the AI boom’s proceeds.

Investors responded before anyone could draft a grand theory. Nvidia shares were down nearly 12% in early trading, according to TechCrunch. Since Friday, the stock had fallen by as much as 19%, wiping more than $855 billion from the company’s market value. For a business of Nvidia’s size, governance drama does not stay in the human-resources drawer for long.

TechCrunch said Huang resigned a few days after admitting to a romantic affair with an alleged Chinese spy, a scandal that had already raised a U.S. national security controversy. The filing, though, is the hard event here: the board accepted the resignation, Kress was installed on an interim basis, and Nvidia now has to prove it is more durable than its founder’s grip on it.

That is not a trivial test. Huang was not just the public face in the leather jacket. TechCrunch described Nvidia as running a very flat organization with roughly 60 direct reports and no clear heir apparent. Efficient structures have a habit of looking elegant until the person holding them together leaves.

The operational question is larger than who gets the keynote slot. Under Huang, Nvidia also used its balance sheet to help finance the AI buildout that bought its chips. As of the end of the second quarter, TechCrunch said Nvidia had $99 billion of investments, $25 billion of commitments and $36 billion in cloud-service commitments tied to operators buying GPUs and data-center equipment. That is not just exposure to AI demand; it is exposure to the people borrowing heavily to create it.

Some of that strain showed up elsewhere on Thursday. TechCrunch said CoreWeave shares were down about 9%, Nebius about 16% and IREN 6.6%. Market moves do not prove a single cause, but they do show where investors think the leverage sits when Nvidia’s leadership suddenly looks less settled.

Nvidia also named Harvey C. Jones, a director since 1993, as its first-ever board chair. Companies do not usually discover the charms of extra oversight when everything feels comfortably under control.