SANTA CLARA, California - Jensen Huang resigned Thursday as Nvidia's president, chief executive and a member of its board, ending a 33-year run leading the company he co-founded into the center of the global artificial-intelligence boom.

Nvidia appointed longtime finance chief Colette Kress as interim CEO while its board conducts a search for a permanent successor. The company also named independent director Harvey C. Jones as chairman, a newly separated role intended to strengthen oversight during the transition.

The announcement followed an emergency board meeting and days of escalating questions about Huang's personal conduct, Nvidia's corporate governance and whether a reported foreign-intelligence effort created risks for U.S. technology security. Nvidia shares fell about 10 percent in premarket trading after already losing ground as reports of a possible leadership change circulated.

Huang's departure came after reports that he had an extramarital relationship with a former executive of Singapore-based Megaspeed International whom U.S. intelligence agencies suspected of passing information to Beijing. China has denied conducting an operation against Huang. Nvidia previously said it had no reason to believe national-security information or company secrets were compromised.

A separate report this week alleged that Huang also had a relationship with an Nvidia executive who reported to him. The Associated Press said it had not independently confirmed the underlying reports. Nvidia's independent directors had already hired outside counsel to investigate the foreign-intelligence concerns before announcing the leadership change.

Megaspeed said Thursday that it takes compliance with U.S. export-control laws seriously and would cooperate with American authorities. The company said it had retained a U.S. law firm to review its inventory and controls. It has previously disputed claims that it diverted restricted Nvidia chips into China.

The controversy has reached Washington because Nvidia's most advanced processors are essential to frontier AI systems, military-relevant computing and data centers. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked the Trump administration to preserve government records concerning Nvidia's chip exports to China, licensing decisions and communications with company executives.

The senators said the episode raised questions about enforcement of American export controls. Their request does not establish that Huang, Nvidia or Megaspeed broke the law, and the independent corporate investigation remains underway.

Kress, Nvidia's chief financial officer since 2013, now inherits an unusually concentrated organization days before quarterly results scheduled for November 17. She has overseen the company's finances through the expansion of its data-center business and the rapid rise of AI-related revenue.

A corporate crisis with national consequences

This is more than the fall of a famous technology executive. Nvidia supplies the computing infrastructure behind much of the AI economy, and Huang was not merely its chief executive. He was its chief product evangelist, dealmaker and public strategist. Replacing that concentration of authority will test whether the institution is as durable as the technology it sells.

The board was right to separate the roles of chairman and chief executive. A company whose products affect U.S. national security cannot depend on personal trust in one founder, however successful. It needs documented controls, independent directors with relevant expertise and a succession plan that works before a crisis begins.

The allegations involving Chinese intelligence remain allegations, and guilt cannot be inferred from a person's nationality, business connections or private relationship. But Beijing has a documented strategic interest in acquiring advanced computing capability despite American restrictions. That makes rigorous investigation necessary, not optional.

Washington should approach the case with the same discipline. Export controls are only credible when licenses, end users and transshipment routes are audited consistently. Political access or a company's market value cannot become a substitute for enforcement. At the same time, officials should publish evidence where security permits and avoid turning suspicion into a verdict.

China's denial was predictable. Authoritarian governments rarely provide transparent accounts of intelligence activity, while private companies often have limited ability to prove how a relationship began or what information moved through it. That asymmetry is precisely why American firms handling strategic technology need safeguards that assume social access can be exploited.

Nvidia's immediate commercial advantages will not disappear with Huang. Its software ecosystem, engineering teams, customer commitments and manufacturing partnerships were built over decades. Yet the market reaction shows how much of the company's valuation was also tied to confidence in one leader.

Kress must now stabilize employees and suppliers while preserving evidence and allowing the outside investigation to proceed without interference. The board should disclose its conclusions in enough detail for shareholders and U.S. authorities to understand what failed, even if sensitive intelligence must remain classified.

America's AI advantage rests on open research, private enterprise and trusted institutions. China can copy products, pressure supply chains and probe human vulnerabilities, but it cannot easily reproduce a system that corrects itself in public. Nvidia now has to prove that accountability is a strength of that system rather than a slogan used after damage is done.