Nvidia said on November 12, 2026, that Jensen Huang resigned as CEO, four days after its board opened an investigation following reports that he "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort." In six selected CEO exits linked to a board review since 2005, four stocks trailed the S&P 500, an index of 500 large US companies, a year later, about as often as after four planned founder handovers (three of four), so in these cases the kind of exit told little about the stock's next year. These are past results; they leave out dividends, costs and taxes, and they do not predict Nvidia's stock.
The short answer. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's founder, resigned as CEO on November 12, 2026, four days after its board opened an investigation. Nvidia calls itself "the world leader in AI and accelerated computing," and its board says it expects "customer commitments" to continue, its own expectation, while the investigation has no announced outcome.
In six selected exits like it since 2005, the middle first-day move was a 2.5% drop, and a year later four of the six stocks trailed the S&P 500, about as often as after the planned handovers at Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and Amazon, so the kind of exit told little about the stock's next year. These are past results; they leave out dividends, costs and taxes, and they do not predict how any stock will move.
| Six sudden exits, 2005 to 2025 | Four founder handovers, 2000 to 2021 | |
|---|---|---|
| Who took over | A temporary CEO in 4 of 6 | A permanent CEO in all 4 |
| The finance chief became temporary CEO | In 3 of 6 | In none |
| The old CEO kept a board seat | In none of the 6 announcements | In all 4 |
| Behind the S&P 500 a year later | 4 of 6 | 3 of 4 |
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In five of the six past cases, the stock fell on the first trading day, and the middle move of the six was a 2.5% fall. These are past results; they leave out dividends, costs and taxes, and they do not predict how any stock will move.
The six cases are Boeing in 2005, HP in 2010, Wynn Resorts and Intel in 2018, McDonald's in 2019 and Kroger in 2025. In five of them, the company's release tied the exit to an investigation or a finding by its board or by lawyers. At Wynn Resorts, the founder resigned eleven days after the board formed a committee to investigate allegations in a press report.
Boeing barely moved, and Intel, McDonald's and Kroger each lost between 2% and 3%. HP had the biggest drop, 8.0%. Wynn Resorts went the other way, with a rise of 8.6%.
Three of the releases also carried news on the business. HP raised its full-year outlook, Intel said it expected a record quarter, and Kroger said its sales would land at the high end of its forecast. Those first-day moves came on days when the releases also carried business news, and these figures cannot separate the effect of one from the other.
Three months on, Intel and HP had fallen well behind the S&P 500, while the other four were ahead of it. A year on, only Boeing and McDonald's were still ahead.
| Company, CEO, date announced | First trading day | S&P 500, same day | 3 months | S&P 500, 3 months | 12 months | S&P 500, 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing, Harry Stonecipher, Mar 7, 2005 | -0.1% | +0.0% | +11.8% | -2.1% | +25.3% | +4.3% |
| HP, Mark Hurd, Aug 6, 2010 | -8.0% | +0.5% | -5.6% | +9.2% | -29.5% | +6.8% |
| Wynn Resorts, Steve Wynn, Feb 6, 2018 | +8.6% | -0.5% | +17.9% | -1.2% | -19.5% | +1.3% |
| Intel, Brian Krzanich, Jun 21, 2018 | -2.4% | -0.6% | -12.7% | +5.8% | -11.2% | +6.5% |
| McDonald's, Steve Easterbrook, Nov 3, 2019 | -2.7% | +0.4% | +11.0% | +5.9% | +11.8% | +9.8% |
| Kroger, Rodney McMullen, Mar 3, 2025 | -3.0% | -1.8% | +3.5% | +0.3% | +5.9% | +14.5% |
Source: StockTitan daily price data; the S&P 500 column is the price of SPY, a fund that tracks the index. These are past results; they leave out dividends, trading costs and taxes, and they do not predict how any stock, including Nvidia's, will move.
Each company said the CEO left at once. Five tied it to an investigation or a finding by the board or by lawyers, and Wynn Resorts' founder resigned eleven days after the board formed an investigating committee.
Boeing said on March 7, 2005, that its board "asked for and received the resignation" of Harry Stonecipher. That followed an investigation by internal and external lawyers, and the board found his actions inconsistent with Boeing's Code of Conduct.
HP said on August 6, 2010, after the market closed, that Mark Hurd had resigned. That followed an investigation by outside lawyers and HP's in-house legal office, overseen by the board, which found "violations of HP's Standards of Business Conduct."
At Wynn Resorts, the board formed a special committee of independent directors, board members who do not work for the company, on January 26, 2018, to investigate allegations in a press report. Eleven days later, the board accepted the founder's resignation. The statement named no finding, and Steve Wynn's own words in it pointed to negative publicity.
Intel said on June 21, 2018, before the market opened, that Brian Krzanich had resigned. An investigation by internal and external lawyers had confirmed a breach of a company policy that applies to all managers.
McDonald's said on Sunday, November 3, 2019, that Steve Easterbrook had left after the board determined "he violated company policy and demonstrated poor judgment."
Kroger said on March 3, 2025, that Rodney McMullen had resigned after a board investigation of his personal conduct. The company said that conduct was unrelated to the business but inconsistent with its Policy on Business Ethics.
Each of these changes was filed with the SEC on a Form 8-K, the report a company files for big events between its quarterly reports.
In the one case of the six where the allegations and the investigation were public first, Wynn Resorts' shares fell 18.6% from January 25 to February 6, 2018, then rose 8.6% on February 7, the first trading day after the exit; these figures do not show what caused either move. That is one past case; it leaves out dividends, costs and taxes, and it does not predict how any stock will move.
In the other five, the exit and the board's finding or investigation came out in the same release. Wynn Resorts was different: the allegations and the board's investigation were public eleven days before the exit.
On January 26, 2018, a Wall Street Journal article reported the allegations, and the board formed its committee the same day, its filing says. From the close before that day to the close before the resignation, Wynn's shares fell 18.6% while the S&P 500 fell 5.0%. The day after the founder stepped down, they rose 8.6%.
A wider study points the same way. A Stanford Graduate School of Business study looked at 38 cases of CEO misconduct reported in the press. Shares fell an average of 3.1% against the market, in the 32 cases with traded shares, over the three days around the first news story. When CEOs were terminated, the study calls the reaction "muted," an average fall of 0.8%, and the middle case rose 0.1%. These are past results from one study of 38 cases; they leave out dividends, costs and taxes, and they do not predict how any stock, including Nvidia's, will move.
Nvidia's board made its investigation public before Huang left. On Sunday, November 8, 2026, four days before Huang's resignation, its board said it was opening an independent investigation after reports that Huang "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort." StockTitan's article on his exit reports how Nvidia's shares moved over those days. The earlier cases do not show how Nvidia's shares will move.
Most also trailed the market a year later: three of the four founder handovers, against four of the six sudden exits. These are past results; they leave out dividends, costs and taxes, and they do not predict how any stock will move.
Bill Gates at Microsoft, Steve Jobs at Apple, Larry Ellison at Oracle and Jeff Bezos at Amazon all handed over the CEO job. Each stayed on the board, and each company named the next CEO the same day.
On January 13, 2000, Gates said Steve Ballmer would become CEO, Microsoft's transcript of his remarks shows. Apple said on August 24, 2011, that Tim Cook would replace Jobs. Oracle named Safra Catz and Mark Hurd as CEOs on September 18, 2014. Amazon said on February 2, 2021, that Andy Jassy would take over later that year.
Apple was the only one ahead of the S&P 500 a year later, up 76.3%. Microsoft fell 50.4% over a year when the S&P 500 fell 9.0%, and Oracle and Amazon trailed it too.
Most stocks in both groups trailed the S&P 500 after a year. The middle shortfall was 13.2 percentage points after the sudden exits and 20.0 after the founder handovers. A percentage point here is the gap between the stock's percentage change and the index's.
| Company, handover, date announced | Next trading day | S&P 500, same day | 3 months | S&P 500, 3 months | 12 months | S&P 500, 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft, Gates to Ballmer, Jan 13, 2000 | +4.1% | +1.4% | -26.5% | -0.5% | -50.4% | -9.0% |
| Apple, Jobs to Cook, Aug 24, 2011 | -0.7% | -1.5% | -2.4% | -1.3% | +76.3% | +19.8% |
| Oracle, Ellison to Catz and Hurd, Sep 18, 2014 | -4.2% | -0.6% | +9.1% | +2.5% | -12.4% | -3.2% |
| Amazon, Bezos to Jassy, Feb 2, 2021 | -2.0% | +0.1% | +2.6% | +9.4% | -10.9% | +19.9% |
Source: StockTitan daily price data; the S&P 500 column is the price of SPY. Oracle and Amazon announced the change with quarterly results. These are past results; they leave out dividends, trading costs and taxes, and they do not predict how any stock will move.
In all six cases the board picked someone already at the company or on its board. Four of those picks were temporary, and three were the finance chief.
Boeing, HP and Intel each handed the job for the time being to the chief financial officer (CFO), the executive in charge of the company's money. Kroger gave it to its lead director, the independent board member who leads the other directors. Wynn Resorts and McDonald's named a permanent CEO the same day, and both picked an executive already running a big part of the business.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2005-03-07 | Boeing: Harry Stonecipher left, CFO James Bell interim CEO |
| 2010-08-06 | HP: Mark Hurd left, CFO Cathie Lesjak interim CEO |
| 2018-02-06 | Wynn Resorts: Steve Wynn left, President Matt Maddox CEO |
| 2018-06-21 | Intel: Brian Krzanich left, CFO Robert Swan interim CEO |
| 2019-11-03 | McDonald's: Steve Easterbrook left, Chris Kempczinski CEO |
| 2025-03-03 | Kroger: Rodney McMullen left, lead director Ron Sargent interim CEO |
| 2026-11-12 | Nvidia: Jensen Huang left, CFO Colette Kress interim CEO |
None of the six announcements said the departing CEO would remain on the board. Four say he also left the board, and Wynn Resorts and Kroger say he gave up the chairman's seat. In the four founder handovers, the founder stayed on as chairman or executive chair, a chairman with a role in running the company.
Like Boeing, HP and Intel, Nvidia named its CFO temporary CEO. Colette Kress took the role, and Huang left the board as well as the CEO job, Nvidia's November 12 release says. So in the earlier cases with a temporary CEO, and now at Nvidia, the board kept the company with people it already knew while it searched for a permanent leader.
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Our numbers
These figures are our calculations from the sources linked in this article. The six are large US companies whose own filings tie a sudden CEO exit to a board review and whose shares StockTitan's price history holds, so cases such as CBS in 2018 are left out. These ten selected cases are history, not a rule: they do not separate the effect of a CEO's exit from other news, and they leave out dividends, trading costs and taxes, so they do not predict how any stock, including Nvidia's, will move.
In six past cases where a big US company's CEO left amid a board investigation or after a board finding, five stocks fell on the first trading day and one rose, and the middle move was a 2.5% fall. In four founder handovers, three stocks fell on the next trading day and one rose. These are past results; they leave out dividends, costs and taxes, and they do not predict how any stock will move.
Yes, the board of directors oversees the CEO. In each of the six cases here the board was involved: it asked for or accepted the resignation, or the CEO left after its finding, as when Boeing's board "asked for and received" a resignation in 2005.
In these six cases it was always someone already at the company or on its board, often the finance chief for the time being. Wynn Resorts and McDonald's named a permanent CEO from inside the company the same day.
Five of these six companies cited a breach of their own rules: a code of conduct, standards of business conduct, a company policy or a business ethics policy. Wynn Resorts' statement named no finding. Boeing, HP, McDonald's and Kroger each said the exit was unrelated to how the business was doing.
A US public company reports a CEO change to the SEC on a Form 8-K, explained in StockTitan's guide to Form 8-K. Its press release also appears on StockTitan's news pages, as Kroger's March 3, 2025 announcement does.
Sources
