In a sudden leadership shakeup that sent ripples across the global semiconductor and artificial intelligence sectors, long-time Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has stepped down from his post after steering the world’s leading AI chipmaker for more than three decades. The November 12 announcement of Huang’s immediate departure caught industry observers off guard, prompting the company’s board of directors to install veteran chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim CEO while a formal global search for a permanent replacement is underway. The board has confirmed it will evaluate both internal high-potential staff and external industry leaders for the permanent top role. Isreali media outlets have highlighted three prominent technology executives, two with deep ties to Nvidia’s 2020 $6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli networking firm Mellanox, as leading candidates for the position. The first contender is Michael Kagan, Nvidia’s current chief technology officer, who co-founded Mellanox in 1999 and joined the AI giant following the acquisition. In his current CTO role, Kagan leads critical R&D efforts focused on high-speed interconnect technologies that enable seamless communication between thousands of processors housed in massive hyperscale data centers, a core capability underpinning modern large language model operations. The second named candidate is Eyal Waldman, the other co-founder and former long-serving CEO of Mellanox, who stepped away from Nvidia’s management roster after the acquisition but has been pulled into succession deliberations per reporting from Israeli news outlet Ynet. The third high-profile contender is Johny Srouji, Apple’s top hardware chief, the visionary executive who spearheaded the Cupertino tech giant’s landmark transition away from Intel processors to its custom in-house Apple Silicon chips, a transformation widely regarded as one of the most ambitious hardware engineering feats in consumer tech history. Huang’s abrupt resignation came in the wake of a wave of media reports scrutinizing his personal relationships, including an alleged extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence agencies have flagged as a suspected asset working on behalf of Beijing. Chinese government officials have formally rejected all espionage-related allegations as unfounded. In a public internal email distributed to all Nvidia staff, Huang openly acknowledged his infidelity to his wife, issuing a formal apology to his immediate family and the company’s global workforce. Following the disclosure, Nvidia’s board launched a formal internal probe to assess whether Huang may have been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, with multiple industry insiders confirming the board had already begun reviewing Huang’s position well before his formal resignation was announced. To date, Nvidia’s leadership has not publicly linked Huang’s reported personal relationships to his decision to step down, nor has the ongoing internal investigation uncovered evidence that proprietary company intellectual property or sensitive U.S. national security information was improperly accessed or leaked. The cascade of allegations has also cast new scrutiny on Nvidia’s sprawling business operations in China, where its high-performance AI chips have long been a central point of contention in U.S. export control policies designed to restrict China’s access to cutting-edge semiconductor technology. One firm now under intensified regulatory and public scrutiny is Megaspeed, a third-party distributor that multiple investigative reports have accused of facilitating unauthorized transfers of restricted Nvidia AI chips to Chinese entities that are barred from accessing the hardware under U.S. trade rules. In an official public statement, Nvidia representatives noted that the company currently has “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised” but emphasized that its full internal investigation will systematically review all available documentation and evidence related to the allegations. Huang’s exit arrives at an extraordinarily precarious moment for the Silicon Valley giant, as its AI accelerators form the foundational backbone of the global generative AI development race, while its cross-border business operations are increasingly caught in the middle of escalating geopolitical frictions between the United States and China.
Three Israelis emerge as possible successors to Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, local media says
