Nvidia is searching for a new CEO as their former disgraced CEO Jensen Huang has stepped down following the exposure of a pair of extramarital affair, one with a suspected Chinese spy. One of the people under consideration to replace him is Apple executive Johny Srouji, who was one of the key figures behind Apple’s move from Intel chips to Apple Silicon.
Fox News this morning reported that Huang has stepped down as Nvidia’s CEO. As expected, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while Nvidia searches for a permanent successor, the company said. Nvidia also named former Synopsys CEO and board member Harvey Jones as its first-ever board chairman. Huang will leave the company’s board as well.
Semafor reports that while the company’s board is considering promoting from within, it is also eyeing talent from outside the company, including Apple’s Srouji.
The full board was scheduled to meet Wednesday evening, and senior White House administration official confirmed that the White House had been informed about the meeting. Under Nvidia’s business charter, the removal of Huang requires only a majority vote from its 11 member board of directors.
It makes sense that Johny Srouji would be considered for the catbird seat at Nvidia, as the Israeli engineer and business executive has served as the chief hardware officer of Apple since April 2026. Before that, he held the company’s senior vice president of hardware technologies leadership role from 2015 to 2026. In 2008, Srouji spearheaded the development of Apple’s first internally designed system-on-a-chip, the A4.
Srouji, was among the executives considered for Intel CEO in 2019, and he certainly has the technical knowledge required for such a position. So far, other than Kress, no other candidates for the post have been mentioned.
As recently as December 2025, Srouji said he had no plans to leave the company for the foreseeable future.
“I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon,” reportedly said Srouji, in a memo at that time.
Srouji reportedly told colleagues that he would likely work for another company if he did leave Apple, rather than retiring.
The controversy that will likely lead to Huang’s exiting Nvidia began with the revelation of his affair with an accused Chinese spy. While the Nvidia board at first backed Huang, the revelation of a second affair has led the board to consider a replacement for the disgraced CEO.
The company’s board announced a probe, which will be conducted by Wachtell Lipton, into whether Huang may have divulged corporate secrets or endangered US national security.
Nvidia’s stock fell more than 8% in after-hours trading, hitting a 52-week low.
US Democratic Senators Chris Coons, D-Del., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter to members of President Trump’s cabinet on Wednesday requesting that they preserve any documents that may be related to Nvidia’s chip exports to China or to entities that could send such chips to the country.
The Senators also requested Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller to preserve any communications any correspondence between Huang and the President, or involving Huang and the suspected Chinese spy he was said to have had an affair with.
