Nvidia ousts Jensen Huang; Colette Kress interim CEO

Jensen Huang's departure caps a rapid unraveling that began four days before his ouster, when he admitted to an affair with a suspected Chinese spy. That relationship involved a Singaporean company that was a major buyer of Nvidia's advanced chips, and a subsequent New York Times report detailed another affair with a subordinate. Huang now faces investigations by the board, Congressional leaders, and the Department of Justice, according to Semafor.

The timing is precarious because Nvidia has never had another leader. Huang had nearly single-handedly turned the company from a niche maker of graphics chips for video games into the centerpiece of the world's AI boom, and there is no succession plan or obvious internal heir. The board's search will therefore be closely watched, with Apple's Johny Srouji among those under consideration and President Trump suggesting former Apple CEO Tim Cook for the role.

The market reaction extended beyond Nvidia itself. Shares of neoclouds Nebius and CoreWeave, which rely on Nvidia to help AI startups rent data-center space, fell as much as 19% and 9%, respectively. Alphabet, whose TPU chips compete with Nvidia's GPUs, saw its shares rise slightly, a sign that investors are already weighing a shift in the competitive landscape.