Jensen Huang, co-founder of Nvidia, resigned on Thursday, citing reports of extramarital affairs, one of which was allegedly with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. The news shook the market, with Nvidia, the AI chip giant, losing more than half a trillion dollars in market value.
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer and executive vice-president, has assumed the duties and is currently in charge of the company. Kress is an industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience, having previously held senior positions at Cisco and Microsoft. She has witnessed Nvidia’s transformation from a video game chip maker in the early 1990s to an AI semiconductor powerhouse, and has led every earnings call alongside Huang.
Among the potential successors mentioned are Chris Malachowsky, who co-founded Nvidia with Huang and Curtis Priem and is the only executive director sharing the same level of seniority, having played a key role in the development of the company’s computing technology. Ian Buck, who oversees Nvidia’s high-performance computing business, is one of the early pioneers who helped popularise the use of graphics processing units beyond gaming applications. Huang’s children also work in executive roles at Nvidia, but they are relatively young and inexperienced.
Analysts are divided over the company’s future. Josh Gilbert, an analyst at investment firm eToro, and Charu Chanana, an investment strategist at investment bank Saxo, commented on the situation, while Jun Bei Liu, founder and chief portfolio manager at Ten Cap, also offered her perspective. Stacy Rasgon, a senior analyst for US semiconductors at Bernstein Research, halved Bernstein’s target price for Nvidia shares. Ray Wang, chief executive of Constellation Research, also provided his assessment.
Several major investment firms have lowered their forecasts for Nvidia, and shares opened down more than 13 per cent. Nvidia’s leading processors are considered the gold standard for AI development and are manufactured with the help of chipmakers around the world, including TSMC in Taiwan and SK Hynix and Samsung in South Korea. In the context of market turmoil, Tim Cook, former chief executive and current chairman of Apple, and Rene Haas, chief executive of British chip giant Arm Holdings, are also mentioned. Reporting was further contributed to by Kali Hays.
