November 12, 2026, (Inside AI) — Nvidia's board is meeting today to decide whether to remove CEO Jensen Huang, according to a source familiar with the matter, as the world's dominant AI chipmaker confronts reports of two extramarital affairs involving its longtime leader. The company did not respond to a request for comment on the board meeting. If the board moves against Huang, the immediate question becomes who can hold together a firm whose market value has already shed roughly $600 billion this week, making it the world's second-most valuable company.
Huang has never named a successor. Analysts and investors now point to two internal figures as the most plausible short-term picks: Ian Buck, the engineer who built the CUDA software platform, and Colette Kress, the chief financial officer who has stood beside Huang on every earnings call for years. The board's choice will signal whether Nvidia wants a technologist to defend its moat or a finance hand to calm markets.
The stakes extend well beyond Nvidia's share price. The company supplies the processors that underpin most large-scale AI training and inference worldwide. A leadership vacuum at the top would ripple through data center buildouts, cloud contracts, and the broader semiconductor supply chain. Prediction market Polymarket put an 83% chance on Huang resigning or being removed by year-end, though trading volume on that contract remains thin.
An Engineer's Moat Versus a CFO's Calm
Buck joined Nvidia in 2004 and led development of CUDA, the software layer that locks developers into Nvidia's hardware. He now runs product for hyperscale AI, overseeing both hardware and software. He holds a PhD from Stanford for work that seeded his AI-focused software at the chip designer. His public remarks suggest a leader focused on technical limits rather than corporate theater.
"One of the most challenging parts of my job often is to try to predict the future, but AI is always surprising us," Buck said at a Bank of America conference last year. "Inference is hard. It's wickedly hard," he told Reuters earlier this year, referring to the process in which AI answers user questions.
Kress, 59, arrived at Nvidia in 2013 after finance roles at Microsoft, Cisco, and Texas Instruments. Some board members reportedly favor naming her interim CEO, according to Semafor, which cited people familiar with the matter. Her case rests on continuity and market trust.
"Colette Kress is the obvious choice to steady the ship. She has been CFO for 13 years and fronts every earnings call alongside him, so she's a familiar and trusted voice for the market at a time when it badly needs one," said Josh Gilbert, lead analyst at trading platform eToro. He added that the permanent job is a different matter: "Nvidia's edge comes from its technology, and the board would likely want an engineer in the chair."
The selloff itself reflects a structural fear that few companies face. Huang is not a interchangeable executive. He built Nvidia from a graphics card vendor into the central engine of the AI boom, and his public persona is inseparable from the brand.
"Jensen Huang is a rockstar in the industry. He's outspoken and synonymous with the Nvidia brand, and a leader like that is very hard to replace," said Anna Wu, founder of Floodlines Research in Sydney.
The succession calculus also carries a lesson from Nvidia's own history. CUDA was not an overnight success. It took years of investment before developers adopted it en masse, and that patience became the company's deepest lock-in. A new CEO inheriting that platform must decide whether to keep funding long-horizon software bets while Wall Street demands quarterly returns. Buck's background suggests he would protect that moat. Kress's background suggests she would protect the balance sheet. The board may not have to choose immediately.
"The more realistic route is an interim leader from the long-serving inner circle, possibly as a co-CEO structure: one leader to steady the business and the finances, such as Colette Kress, alongside a product and technology leader, such as Ian Buck," said Armina Rosenberg, portfolio manager and co-founder at Minotaur Capital in Sydney, which owns Nvidia shares.
Outside Options and a Family Question
Speculation has also touched external names. Rene Haas, chief executive of Arm and a former Nvidia executive, has surfaced as a candidate. A banker working on chip deals told Reuters that Haas made the most logical sense because of his profile and semiconductor fluency. Jeff Fisher, a 32-year Nvidia veteran, and Huang's two children, both Nvidia executives, have also been mentioned in market chatter. Reuters did not receive immediate responses to emails seeking comment from Kress, Buck, and Haas.
Longer-term concerns go beyond who sits in the chair next quarter. Nvidia's advantage has rested on Huang's ability to call where computing is heading before rivals do.
"My bigger concern is next decade, because Jensen isn't simply Nvidia's CEO but he's the person who has consistently identified where computing is going," said Shay Boloor, chief market strategist of Futurum Equities. "If a transition becomes necessary then Ian Buck is the strongest long-term internal candidate given his role in creating CUDA and leading Nvidia's hyperscale business."
Read: Nvidia's Jensen Huang Faces Trust Crisis After Affair With Alleged Chinese Spy
For now, the board holds the decision. Whatever it chooses, the market will read the pick as a statement about whether Nvidia sees itself as a technology company first or a financial story first. The answer will shape how the AI hardware sector prices risk for years.
Shamil has a low tolerance for AI that only works in controlled demos. He covers agentic systems and generative AI with the skepticism of someone who has seen too many “revolutionary” tools quietly disappear six months after launch.
