KEY POINTS
- Nvidia confirmed Jensen Huang resigned as CEO, president and board member, with finance chief Colette Kress serving as interim CEO.
- Nvidia shares fell 14% at Thursday's open, and the company dropped to third place among the world's most valuable firms.
- Crypto and AI figures disagreed with the board's decision, and many raised concerns about the future of open-source AI at Nvidia.
Nvidia has confirmed that co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as CEO, president and board member after 33 years, and the move has drawn sharp reactions from leading names in crypto and artificial intelligence, according to Decrypt. The company named its longtime finance chief, Colette Kress, as interim CEO.
The departure followed reports about Huang's personal conduct and related security concerns. Huang acknowledged in a message to employees on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife. Nvidia said in a board statement that it has no reason to believe its secrets or national security were compromised, and that an independent investigation is still underway. Decrypt noted that the reported foreign-intelligence suspicions have not established that Huang knowingly passed information to a foreign government.
Investors responded negatively. Nvidia shares fell 14% at Thursday's opening bell, and Decrypt said more than $500 billion was erased from U.S. stocks within a single minute. Nvidia, once the world's most valuable company, now ranks third. The outlet added that the company was already under pressure before the news.
Several crypto executives said the board erred. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao wrote that it was a mistake to let Huang resign, and former Kraken executive Dan Held said he should have stayed. Erik Voorhees, founder of ShapeShift and the AI platform Venice, questioned the evidence behind the espionage claims, while Anthony Pompliano urged people to focus on the importance of open-source AI.
Open-source AI was a central theme. Nvidia is one of the more prominent corporate backers of open models, and in July it joined Microsoft, IBM, Hugging Face and dozens of other groups to launch the Open Secure AI Alliance. Some developers fear a post-Huang Nvidia may be less willing to challenge firms that keep their strongest models proprietary. Advocate Jun Song alleged that OpenAI and Anthropic lobbied Congress to restrict open weights. Decrypt said this needs far more evidence: OpenAI later signed a letter supporting open weights, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said his company never advocated a ban.
The question carries extra weight because Nvidia agreed in September to buy the open-source AI repository Hugging Face for roughly $12.9 billion. The deal needs regulatory clearance and is expected to close in the first half of 2027. Voorhees asked on social media whether a decentralized version of Hugging Face exists yet.
Other tech leaders also reacted. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney called it a sad day for Nvidia and developers, and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas thanked Huang for his leadership. Peter Steinberger, creator of the OpenClaw agent, said the ouster felt rushed. In Washington, Sen. Kevin Cramer had urged Huang to leave, citing blackmail risks, while President Donald Trump said Huang was suffering but would be in good shape. Elon Musk replied that hiring Huang would be an honor.
Nvidia said its board is searching for a permanent CEO both inside and outside the company, with Kress running operations meanwhile. Its next earnings report is due on November 17, the first major financial update since Huang's exit.
