Newsroom
Jensen Huang turned Nvidia from a company best known for video-game graphics into the chipmaker at the center of the artificial intelligence boom. On Thursday, he resigned as chief executive after 33 years, and the board named finance chief Colette Kress to run the company while it searches for a permanent successor.
The departure came a day after The New York Times reported that Huang had a relationship with a senior Nvidia executive who reported to him. The board had already brought in outside lawyers to investigate whether Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, following reports of a separate relationship with a businesswoman U.S. authorities suspect of working for Chinese intelligence. Beijing has denied she was a spy.
Nvidia shares fell more than 10% before Wall Street opened, dragging on the broader market. That matters in Cyprus, too. Anyone here with savings in a fund that tracks the S&P 500 can feel the effects of a drop in Nvidia shares even if they’ve never bought the stock directly. Nvidia is one of the index’s biggest holdings.
The wider question is how Nvidia will steer the business without the man who built it. Its chips power much of the computing behind today’s AI tools, so the leadership change is being watched by companies building those tools as closely as it is by investors.
*With information from CNN
