Nvidia said on Thursday that its board had ousted co-founder and chief executive Jensen Huang, a day after reports that directors were preparing to remove him. Finance chief Colette Kress will take over as interim chief executive. The company's announcement did not give the effective date of the change, and the reports did not say how Nvidia shares reacted.
The decision follows reports of two extramarital affairs. One of the women was alleged by press reports to be a Chinese asset, according to what US intelligence agencies reportedly believe. Huang told employees over the weekend that he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologised. China has called the spy account baseless and a smear. On Sunday the board said it had begun an independent investigation into whether Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, and said it had no reason to believe that company secrets or national security had been compromised.
Who Kress is
Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013 as executive vice president and chief financial officer and has held that post since. She spent eight years in finance at Texas Instruments, worked at Microsoft from 1997 to 2010, becoming chief financial officer of its Server and Tools division in 2006, and from 2010 was chief financial officer of Cisco's business technology and operations finance organisation. She holds a finance degree from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.
Her contract is at will, with no individual employment, severance or change-in-control agreements, according to the company's proxy statement. Her Nvidia shares were worth about 750 million dollars at Wednesday's close, down from more than 1 billion dollars at the stock's peak last month.
What remains open
The reports did not cover the status of the board's investigation. Separate reports said the US Justice Department is examining Singapore-based Megaspeed International, which the alleged spy once led, over possible breaches of export limits on advanced AI chips; Megaspeed denies involvement in illegal transfers. Nvidia also faces a securities lawsuit over what it disclosed about Huang's relationship. Nvidia chips feature in several of the AI infrastructure plans announced in India, including those of Yotta Data Services and Larsen and Toubro, so leadership and export questions at the company matter to Indian buyers. The allegations about Huang's relationships come from press reports and the company's own admissions, and several details have not been independently verified.
