Internal executives and outside candidates said to be under consideration

Board meeting expected to take hours; majority vote enough to oust Jensen Huang for any reason

Prediction markets put odds of Huang staying at just 12% as tech leaders rally to his defense

Colette Kress, Nvidia's chief financial officer, is widely cited as the leading candidate to serve as interim CEO should Jensen Huang be removed. [SNS]
Colette Kress, Nvidia's chief financial officer, is widely cited as the leading candidate to serve as interim CEO should Jensen Huang be removed. [SNS]

Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is emerging as the leading candidate to serve as interim CEO should Jensen Huang be removed, while Apple's Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji has been named as one of the candidates to permanently succeed Huang at the helm of the chipmaker.

US online outlet Semafor reported Wednesday (local time), citing multiple sources, that some members of Nvidia's board of directors support appointing Kress as interim chief if Huang is ousted.

Kress is the most publicly prominent Nvidia executive after Huang himself and has been with the company for 13 years, giving her deep familiarity with its operations. She also brings financial experience from Cisco and Microsoft, along with a strong grounding in the technology sector.

However, her lack of an engineering background means she is being discussed only as a temporary placeholder rather than a permanent successor to lead a semiconductor company.

Armineh Rosenberg, co-founder of Minotaur Capital, which holds Nvidia shares, said markets have begun to treat the prospect of Nvidia without its founder as "a possible outcome" rather than a mere "tail risk." "Losing Jensen would be a really significant blow," she added.

Rosenberg said some board members floating Kress as interim CEO was "a natural choice," but added that "the more important question is who will lead the company's long-term roadmap."

The field of candidates to permanently succeed Huang remains largely undisclosed. With the board said to have engaged an outside headhunting firm, both internal executives and external recruits are seen as possibilities.

One source said Srouji, the architect of the "Apple Silicon" era, is among those being mentioned. Srouji led Apple's in-house chip design effort from the outset and now oversees the hardware division under CEO John Ternus, who succeeded Tim Cook.

Users of prediction market Polymarket give the highest odds — 33% — to Ian Buck, a 22-year Nvidia veteran who spearheaded development of the CUDA platform and currently oversees the data center and computing division.

Kress followed at 30%, with Renee Haas, a former Nvidia executive now serving as CEO of another firm, at 5%. The probability of Huang remaining in his role was put at just 12%.

Voices from the technology industry rallied to Huang's defense. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney posted on X, formerly Twitter, that if the Nvidia board were to remove Huang, "it would be as foolish as when Apple fired Steve Jobs" and would "cause serious harm to the United States."

Gavin Baker, founder of Atreides Management, said he had been receiving a stream of calls urging the board to wait for the results of an investigation before acting. "Don't call me — call the people who can actually influence that decision," he said.

Bloomberg reported that the emergency board meeting, held via video conference, was expected to take several hours before a final decision could be reached.

Nvidia's corporate bylaws allow the board to remove the CEO by a simple majority vote, with or without cause, meaning a decision itself could come quickly once enough directors align.

Beyond deciding whether to retain or remove Huang, however, the board must also review the findings of an investigation, receive legal counsel and discuss next steps including the selection of a successor. Bloomberg added that the absence of a public announcement would not necessarily mean a decision had not been made.

Nvidia's board currently has 11 members; all 10 directors other than Huang himself are independent.

Nvidia's share price rose 2.87% during regular trading Wednesday (local time), buoyed in part by bargain hunting, but fell more than 8.6% in after-hours trading after reports emerged that Huang could be removed. As of 8 p.m. Eastern time, the stock was trading at $158.78.


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