Nvidia opens its first CEO search in 33 years with Jensen Huang keeping a $132 billion stake
The board that accepted Jensen Huang's resignation on November 11 handed Nvidia to a finance chief who has never run a profit-and-loss, while the founder's family holds posts across marketing, robotics and AI infrastructure. Tuesday's earnings and a February selling window will price how long the vacuum lasts.
Vincent Jiangfour-minute read
He said the next CEO 'has to be hired'
"Just as I can be fired, the next CEO has to be hired," Jensen Huang, Nvidia's−3.21% — Nvidia, down 3.21 percent today chief executive for all 33 years since co-founding the company, told Bloomberg's The Circuit in an interview recorded on October 14, weeks before the scandal broke 1.
The board accepted his resignation on November 11 and announced it the next morning: Huang out as president, chief executive and director at once; finance chief Colette Kress interim CEO while keeping the CFO job; the permanent search open to internal and external candidates 23. The trigger was New York Times reporting on two affairs, one with a woman U.S. officials concluded was a Chinese intelligence asset 2.
The vacuum already has a price
Nvidia's valuation peaked at $5.8 trillion in early October; the stock closed Friday at its lowest since July 2025, about 32 percent below its October 6 record 34. Three former Fortune 500 CEOs told Fortune the governance hole is "preposterous 34."
Kress's resume lists a quarter century in Big Tech finance, 13 years of it at Microsoft−0.28% — Microsoft, down 0.28 percent today, and no job where she ran a business or owned a profit-and-loss 3. Huang's roughly 60 direct reports left no lieutenant tested for the top job, they said 3. By Fortune's count, none of the seven other directors has run a Fortune 500 company, and four have been seated 13 to 29 years 3.
An activist would have had a case
"If Nvidia hadn't been performing well, it would have been exhibit A for an activist attack," one of them said, meaning a campaign by an activist hedge fund to force board and management change 3. Ownership was no check: the biggest holders are all institutions 3. The board's first fix was itself, naming former Synopsys−3.17% — Synopsys, down 3.17 percent today chief executive Harvey$15.5B — Harvey, private, latest valuation $15.5B Jones as Nvidia's first-ever chair 2.
Nvidia's biggest owners are all institutions; Jensen Huang's 3.5% is the largest individual stake
One vote per share, no founder class, and still no owner checked the board
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Blackstone | 8.1% |
| Vanguard | 6.5% |
| MS, T. Rowe, JPM (combined) | 5% |
| State Street | 4.2% |
| Fidelity | 3.9% |
| Jensen Huang | 3.5% |
The founder's family stays on the org chart
Madison Huang, the founder's daughter, is senior director of product marketing for physical AI, Nvidia's term for the AI that runs robots and machines, and former employees told Business Insider her influence runs past the title: "She's like a little mini Jensen, his eyes and ears inside the business" 5. Her fiscal 2026 pay was $1.23 million, up from a cap of $165,000 three years earlier; brother Spencer, director of product for robotics, made $1.32 million; husband Nico Caprez is vice president of global AI infrastructure growth 65.
The founder's daughter and son each draw seven to eight times the 2023 cap on their jobs
Both children now earn more in a year than the roles were capped at for three years
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Cap on the roles, fiscal 2023 | $165,000 |
| Madison Huang, fiscal 2026 | $1.23M |
| Spencer Huang, fiscal 2026 | $1.32M |
Nvidia said the family's pay follows its standard benchmarks for comparable jobs, without Jensen Huang's involvement or influence 6. Former employees said Madison lacks the technical experience to succeed her father now, one imagining her taking the helm in a decade 5. Her father had already ruled out the shortcut, in that October 14 interview: "If that's their aspiration, Spencer or Madison's, they have to go earn it" 1.
The stake, and the window to move it
Huang keeps about 812 million shares, worth about $132 billion at Friday's close, and forfeits about $108 million in unvested awards; about 70 million shares are his outright, the other 740 million or so sit in family trusts, including one he runs with his wife, Lori 4.
His insider status runs three months past November 11, so big sales need public notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission until mid-February 4. Between that date and the late-February annual report sits a roughly two-week stretch, after the notice requirement ends and before the filing lands, that has drawn attention online; selling on what he knows and the market does not would stay illegal through all of it 4.
The buyback is bigger than the stake
Liz Thomas, SoFi's−2.23% — SoFi, down 2.23 percent today chief market strategist, calls the stake "an overhang on the trade for the foreseeable future" 4. The cushion is real: Nvidia had $235 billion left on its buyback as of September 28, enough to absorb every share he owns, against a stake worth under six days of typical trading 4. Tuesday, November 17 brings the fiscal third-quarter report, for the quarter ended October 25, on Huang's watch and guided in August to $108.0 billion of revenue; its filing shows whether he left a preplanned trading plan on his way out 784.
Nvidia's quarterly revenue has grown 5.3-fold since late 2023, and it guides the next quarter to $108 billion
- Revenue
- Estimate
Data
| Revenue | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '23 | $18.12B |
| Q4 '23 | $22.1B |
| Q1 '24 | $26.04B |
| Q2 '24 | $30.04B |
| Q3 '24 | $35.08B |
| Q4 '24 | $39.33B |
| Q1 '25 | $44.06B |
| Q2 '25 | $46.74B |
| Q3 '25 | $57.01B |
| Q4 '25 | $68.13B |
| Q1 '26 | $81.62B |
| Q2 '26 | $96.22B |
| Q3 '26 guide (estimate) | $108B |
Hold the discount, or wait for the hire
Reporting on candidates leans outside the company: analyst Dan Ives sees a "good chance Nvidia's board looks to the outside for a CEO," and the names floated include Arm−6.76% — Arm, down 6.76 percent today chief executive Rene Haas and Ian Buck, who runs Nvidia's data-center business 92. Until a hire lands, the choice is to carry the vacuum's discount into Tuesday's print or wait for the permanent appointment, and two dated tells will do the pricing: the trading-plan disclosure in Tuesday's filing, and any sale in the post-insider February gap 4.
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More about NVIDIA
NVDAFiscal Q2 2027Revenue rose 106% to $96.2B, 92.5% of it from Data Center, “driven by the ramp of our Blackwell Ultra infrastructure”. Gains on equity stakes of $7.8B lifted net income to $59.7B.
Show as a table
| Line | Value |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $96.2B |
| Gross margin | 75.0% |
| Operating margin | 66.2% |
| Net income | $59.7B |
| Hyperscale | $48.7B |
| AI clouds & enterprise | $40.3B |
| Data Center | $89.0B |
| Edge Computing | $7.2B |
| Gross profit | $72.1B |
| Cost of revenue | $24.1B |
| Other income | $7.8B |
| Operating income | $63.7B |
| Operating expenses | $8.4B |
| Tax | $11.8B |
| R&D | $7.1B |
| SG&A | $1.4B |
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