Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO: How Prediction Markets Priced His Exit

Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive of Nvidia after 33 years, and the company has named chief financial officer Colette Kress interim CEO while it searches for a permanent replacement. Nvidia confirmed in an SEC filing that its board accepted Huang's resignation on Wednesday, Nov. 11, and announced it on Thursday, Nov. 12, according to TechCrunch. Prediction markets moved before the announcement: the odds of Huang leaving by the end of the year rose from about 16% to near 90% in the two hours after reports on Wednesday evening that the board was preparing to remove him.

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Who Is Colette Kress, Nvidia's Interim CEO

Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013 and has been its executive vice president and chief financial officer since then. She will keep the CFO role while serving as interim CEO, CNBC reported. Before Nvidia she held senior finance roles at Microsoft, Cisco and Texas Instruments.

The board also named Harvey C. Jones, a director since 1993 and a former chief executive of Synopsys, as Nvidia's first board chair. "The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team," Jones said, according to CNBC. The board said it will consider internal and external candidates for the permanent job. Huang was not quoted in the company's announcement, according to CNBC.

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What Led to Huang's Resignation

Huang's exit followed two weeks of reporting about his personal relationships and a federal investigation, according to a timeline published by TechCrunch:

• Oct. 29: The New York Times reported that U.S. officials had spent more than a year investigating Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer, and that she had a close relationship with Jensen Huang. The two are not related. An Nvidia spokesperson said at the time that such interactions were "not unusual or unexpected."
• Nov. 6: The Times reported that a classified U.S. government memo described Alice Huang as a spy for China's Ministry of State Security. Nvidia has not confirmed that characterization.
• Nov. 8: In a letter to employees that Nvidia also published, Huang said he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologized, CNN reported. He did not name the other person. He said the board had opened an independent investigation and that he would cooperate. According to CNBC, Huang denied that he had compromised national security or Nvidia's secrets.
• Nov. 11: The New York Times reported, citing five people who had worked at Nvidia, that Huang had a separate affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of health care, who reports directly to him, according to TechCrunch. Nvidia, Huang and Powell have not confirmed that report. The same evening, The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to oust Huang, according to Forbes, which said Reuters had independently confirmed the report.

Nvidia shares fell about 8% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, according to Forbes, and slid more than 10% in premarket trading on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera.

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How Kalshi and Polymarket Odds Moved, Hour by Hour

Kalshi added near-term deadlines to its "When will Jensen Huang leave as Nvidia CEO?" market on Nov. 8, the day of Huang's letter. Polymarket opened its "Jensen Huang announced resignation or removal by...?" market the same afternoon. For three days, traders treated the scandal as survivable. The table tracks Kalshi's "before Jan. 1, 2027" contract and Polymarket's "by Dec. 31, 2026" contract. All times are Eastern.

Time (ET)	Kalshi	Polymarket
Sun, Nov 8, evening	18% to 26%	10% to 17%
Mon, Nov 9 to Wed, Nov 11, 4:55 p.m.	13% to 21%	13% to 17%
Wed, Nov 11, 5:01 p.m.	36%	33%
Wed, Nov 11, 5:30 p.m.	80%	77%
Wed, Nov 11, 7:00 p.m.	90%	90%
Thu, Nov 12, 6:00 to 8:48 a.m.	77% to 79%	74% to 78%
Thu, Nov 12, 8:50 a.m.	99%	99.5%

The first jump came at 4:57 p.m. on Wednesday, when both venues moved from about 17% to above 30% within four minutes. The second came at 5:29 p.m., when Kalshi went from 30% to 80% and Polymarket from 32% to 77% in two minutes, with Kalshi trading as high as 89% during that minute. That was the evening The Times reported the second affair and The Journal reported the board was preparing to remove Huang. Prices peaked near 90% around 7 p.m.

Overnight, with no announcement from Nvidia, the odds slipped back to about 75%. On Thursday the contracts moved from about 77% to 99% between 8:49 and 8:50 a.m. as news of the resignation broke. Kalshi posted "JUST IN: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns" on X at 8:51 a.m. Kalshi closed trading at 9:11 a.m. and settled the contracts half an hour later.

Kalshi's short-dated contracts show the same uncertainty in miniature. A contract added Wednesday evening on whether Huang would leave before Nov. 12 traded around 30% for most of the night before falling to 1% and settling No, because the departure was announced on Nov. 12. The before-Nov. 13 contract swung between 31% and 71% before resolving Yes.

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How the Kalshi and Polymarket Contracts Resolved

Kalshi settled every contract in the event at 9:41 a.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 12. The 15 contracts with deadlines of Nov. 13, 2026 or later resolved Yes and paid $1 per contract, from "before Nov. 13, 2026" through "before Jan. 1, 2033." The only contract that resolved No was "before Nov. 12, 2026," because Kalshi's rules exclude the deadline date itself and Huang's departure was announced on Nov. 12. That contract settled No just after midnight Eastern, about nine hours before the announcement.

On Polymarket, the Nov. 11 deadline resolved No early Thursday. The six later deadlines, from Nov. 12, 2026 through Dec. 31, 2027, trade at 99.95% and have a Yes resolution proposed through Polymarket's UMA resolution process, which pays out once the proposal clears its challenge period.

Deadline	Kalshi	Polymarket
Nov. 11, 2026	Not listed	Resolved No
Nov. 12, 2026	Resolved No	Yes proposed
Nov. 13, 2026	Resolved Yes	Yes proposed
Nov. 30, 2026 / Dec. 1, 2026	Resolved Yes	Yes proposed
Dec. 31, 2026 / Jan. 1, 2027	Resolved Yes	Yes proposed
2027 and later	Resolved Yes	Yes proposed

The two venues' Nov. 12 contracts are not the same bet. Kalshi asked whether Huang would leave before Nov. 12, while Polymarket asked whether a resignation or removal would be announced by Nov. 12, so a Thursday announcement settles them on opposite sides.

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How Much Was Traded on Huang's Future

Kalshi's event page shows $20.7 million in volume across its 16 deadline contracts. Measured in contracts, 19.8 million changed hands, according to Kalshi's market data. The two busiest were the before-Nov. 12 contract, with 7.1 million, and the before-Nov. 13 contract, with 4.1 million. The before-Jan. 1, 2027 contract traded 3.1 million contracts, with about 1.1 million of that in the hour after 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

7D30D90D

Nov 11

$15.1M

Prior 7-day avg

$286K

Acceleration

52.9×

Kalshi

Volume peaked in the hour before midnight Wednesday, when 3.1 million contracts traded on Kalshi.

On Polymarket, the resignation-or-removal event recorded $22.3 million in volume, according to Polymarket. Its busiest contracts were the Nov. 11 deadline, at $7.1 million, which resolved No, the Nov. 12 deadline, at $5.9 million, and the Dec. 31 deadline, at $5.5 million.

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What Comes Next for Nvidia

Nvidia reports quarterly results on Nov. 17, its first under Kress. Polymarket's "Next CEO of NVIDIA?" market has drawn about $311,000 in volume so far, with traders pricing Nvidia executive Ian Buck at 36% and Kress at 23% on Thursday. Congressional Republicans have also sought a closed-door briefing from Huang on the national security questions, according to TechCrunch, and the board's investigation, led by the law firm Wachtell Lipton, according to CNBC, has not published findings.