Kress loses ground in the race to succeed Huang

Traders cut Colette Kress from a 59% high to 16%, and now rank Ian Buck first.

In one line: NVIDIA will not name Colette Kress as Jensen Huang's successor by the end of 2028, and her 16% price still overstates her chances.

Traders on Polymarket have cut the chance that Colette Kress, NVIDIA's finance chief, will be named to succeed Jensen Huang to 16%. The contract hit a 7-day high of 59% on 12 Nov and has since fallen 42 points, including 12.1 points in the last 24 hours. Over the 7 days it lost 32 points from its 49% open on 10 Nov, after touching a low of 2% that same day.

Ian Buck now leads the event at 30%. Behind him come Kress at 16%, Johny Srouji at 11% and Tim Cook at 5%. Traders give the same 5% to Huang still having no announced successor when 2028 ends. Kalshi prices the same question almost identically, with Buck at 31%, Kress at 17% and Cook at 3%. The two venues draw on partly different pools of money, so their agreement suggests the order is not a quirk of one book.

The path says more than the level. A contract that runs between 2% and 59% inside one window has no settled view beneath it, and the 16% where it now sits matches Kalshi's 17% for her more closely than either extreme. Both venues now put Buck well ahead of her, so the 59% peak is the outlier and the fall brought the price back into line with the other book. The rule pays on the first person NVIDIA officially announces as Huang's successor by 31 December 2028, even if that person never takes the job, and interim chiefs do not count. With 780 days to run, any public succession signal from NVIDIA could reorder the field.

The call: NVIDIA will not announce Kress as Huang's successor before 31 December 2028, and 16% still overstates her chance. The best case against is that both venues rank her second, so if NVIDIA passes over Buck, she is the next most favoured candidate on both. An official NVIDIA announcement naming Kress before 11:59pm ET on 31 December 2028 would prove the call wrong.