Nvidia's chief executive is gone, and the most valuable question in tech is now who sits in his chair. On Thursday morning, the company announced that Jensen Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and a director, effective immediately. The release gives no reason.

The board did not wait. Within a day, the Financial Times reported it had approached Arm chief executive Rene Haas — a former Nvidia executive — as a possible successor. The board pushed back, saying it is still selecting a search firm and has not formally engaged any candidate; Reuters could not independently verify the report. Denied or not, the approach tells you the shape of the race: the board is looking outside as well as inside, and moving fast.

## The inside race: Kress vs Buck

The two names that keep surfacing are both already inside the building.

Colette Kress, CFO since 2013, is interim chief executive. She told staff the company faces "an extraordinarily difficult period", set a company meeting for November 18, and leads the first post-Huang earnings call on Tuesday.

The other name is Ian Buck, the longtime engineer who helped build CUDA and now leads hyperscale AI products. Reuters reported he had emerged alongside Kress as a leading internal candidate; a Kalshi market snapshot at midday on Saturday put Haas at 25%, Buck at 18% and Kress at 10%.

Harvey C. Jones, a former Synopsys chief executive and a Nvidia director since 1993, becomes the board's first-ever chair. The board says it will consider internal and external candidates.

## The wild cards

Then the wild cards: Donald Trump posted that Apple chief executive Tim Cook should replace Huang. Huang himself has hired the law firm Paul Weiss, the New York Times reported, without saying why. And Congress has now put dates on the calendar: the three House chairs wrote on Thursday asking Huang for a closed-door, transcribed interview on December 1, with written confirmation by Friday 8 p.m. ET or a subpoena follows; Senate Banking chair Tim Scott separately asked him to testify on December 3. The Friday deadline passed with no confirmation and no subpoena reported as of Saturday evening — and House chair Brian Mast also said Huang had agreed to brief lawmakers before Thanksgiving, with the timing still being negotiated. So the December dates are requests, not confirmed appearances.

Then the twist nobody in the succession race saw coming: a "Stand with Jensen" petition, launched by Nvidia employees, is demanding the board reinstate Huang while the independent investigation establishes the facts — or give an evidence-based explanation if he stays out. It passed 100,000 signatures on Saturday — more than 108,000 by Saturday morning, including more than 5,000 people identifying as current employees — and Elon Musk publicly signed it ("I'm signing it too"), along with Tom Lee, Shopify chief Tobi Lutke, Replit chief Amjad Masad, Epic Games chief Tim Sweeney and Y Combinator chief Garry Tan. The signatures are self-reported and unverified, and the organisers say they are removing fake entries — but if the board is picking a successor while its own employees campaign to bring the old one back, the race may not be the only story.

And now the shareholders are joining in. Two large investors, Altimeter Capital's Brad Gerstner and Atreides Management's Gavin Baker, wrote to the board on Friday asking it not to rush naming a permanent chief executive — and to keep Huang's return on the table.

The context, in one paragraph: the board opened an independent investigation on November 8 into reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort; the board said it had "no reason to believe" secrets were compromised. The New York Times reported on October 29 that U.S. intelligence had concluded Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive, was a Chinese intelligence asset — the Times does not assert Jensen Huang knowingly participated, China denies it, and no one has been charged. Trump said earlier in the week that he had spoken with Huang, who told him he did not know Alice Huang was suspected of spying. Huang acknowledged a personal relationship on November 8 and apologised; a shareholder lawsuit filed Monday accuses him of concealing risks around it.

The market has already voted with its feet: the stock is about a third below its October 6 record of $243.37.

## What to watch next

- **Tuesday, November 17:** earnings, after the close — Kress's first results call (~$108B guided; analysts expect about $109B).

- **Wednesday, November 18:** the staff meeting.

- **Tuesday, December 1:** the closed-door House interview the chairs requested — the Friday confirmation deadline passed with no answer and no subpoena reported; if either lands, it leads the news.

- **Thursday, December 3:** Huang's requested Senate Banking testimony.

- **The search:** insider, outsider, or a name nobody has floated yet — or nobody at all, if the reinstatement campaign gains ground.

For now, the trade is simple to describe and hard to call: a founder gone after 33 years, an empty chair, and a succession race that started before the resignation announcement was a day old.

*This article is not financial advice. Figures are from market data and company announcements as of Sunday, November 15, 2026. The espionage allegations are as reported by The New York Times and others; the Times does not assert Jensen Huang knowingly participated, China denies the allegation, and no charges have been filed against Alice Huang, Megaspeed, Jensen Huang, or Nvidia.*