'Bring back the boss': Nvidia staff push for Jensen Huang's return

What's going on

Nvidia is in turmoil. The company makes the GPUs that almost the entire AI industry runs on. Its founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, resigned on Thursday after several affairs came to light. Some of his staff aren't willing to accept that. According to a WIRED report based on internal documents, many employees are urging the board to bring Huang back.

It started with a post in an internal "Suggestion Box" system, a kind of digital drop box where employees can submit ideas. A long-time engineer wrote it before the resignation. In it, he asked the board to take the mood among employees into account before making any decision. The post now has more than 1,600 comments. Several of them call for finding a way to bring Huang back.

"If you believe in the mission, bring back THE boss"

wrote one anonymous commenter. Another said: "We are all human and we make mistakes. Jensen has done so much good, he deserves a second chance."

The backstory: three affairs and a spying suspicion

Huang is 63 and had run Nvidia since its founding in 1993, 33 years in total. On Sunday, he admitted in an email to staff that he had been "unfaithful" to his wife. He went on: "My actions have hurt her and her children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry." He didn't name anyone.

This followed reports of a relationship with Alice Huang, who is not related to him. She was a manager at Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer. According to Northeastern Global News, US intelligence agencies believe she is an agent of the Chinese government. India Today names the specific agency: the MSS. She co-founded Megaspeed in 2023. According to India Today, the company reportedly bought $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia hardware for Chinese customers, including Alibaba.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported a second affair, this time with Kimberly Powell. She is Nvidia's vice president of healthcare and reported directly to Huang. Powell has not commented. On Thursday morning, the board announced the resignation. Just hours later, Reuters reported an alleged third affair with another employee who wasn't named. Huang hasn't said anything since his Sunday email.

The fallout reaches far beyond the company. According to WIRED, Nvidia has lost around $1 trillion in market value since the allegations broke. US lawmakers and the FBI are investigating, and new chip export restrictions are on the table. Even so, Northeastern Global News puts the company's value at more than $4 trillion.

The mood among employees

According to WIRED, day-to-day work carried on as normal all week. But the resignation caught many employees off guard. In the hours that followed, about two dozen Nvidia employees posted messages of support for Huang on LinkedIn. One person called their faith in his leadership "unwavering." WIRED found no posts from employees welcoming the resignation over the same period.

One employee went further, sending a company-wide email demanding transparency about Huang's departure:

"I stand with Jensen. Not because I believe any human being is infallible, but because I refuse to believe that standing up for fairness has to mean distancing ourselves from someone whose leadership has meant so much to us."

The email ends: "If America abandons the man who helped build its future, then this world does not deserve Jensen Huang."

Another employee, who has worked at Nvidia for a few years, thinks the wish for Huang's return is widespread. He fears the company will eventually suffer without its founder at the top. In his words: "Nvidia is Nvidia because of Jensen." Many apparently expected the board to finish its investigation before deciding anything. The suggestion box post explicitly asked for the findings to be shared with staff and for their opinion to be sought "on Jensen remaining CEO." Instead, Huang left when the investigation had barely begun. Employees now want to know why.

The new leadership and its messages

According to WIRED, the board is made up mostly of early investors and long-time Huang confidants. It has named CFO Colette Kress interim CEO. The new chair is Harvey Jones, former CEO of chip design software maker Synopsys. He's the board's first chair ever, since Nvidia never had a dedicated chair before. The company says there was no succession plan in place.

Business Insider has published internal memos from both of them. In hers, Kress thanks staff for their "resilience" during an "extraordinarily difficult time" and announces an all-hands meeting on the company's future for November 18 at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. Jones writes that the board is looking for a permanent successor and is considering both internal and external candidates. He notes that Kress has been CFO for more than 13 years and was a "key architect" of the company's growth. Jones calls Huang's contribution to Nvidia "profound." Neither Nvidia nor Jones initially responded to WIRED's requests for comment.

Backing from Silicon Valley and from Trump

According to India Today, Huang is also getting support from outside the company. On X, Elon Musk replied "true words" to a post comparing Huang's exit to Steve Jobs being pushed out of Apple and Travis Kalanick's ouster at Uber. Before that, he had said he would hire Huang "with honor." Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas thanked him for "33 years of bold leadership." Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney called the departure "a sad day for Nvidia, developers, America and all of humanity."

On Truth Social, US President Donald Trump called Huang a "legend" and suggested Apple CEO Tim Cook as his successor: "A legend replacing a legend!" Some see the affair as a targeted attack. Anduril founder Palmer Luckey wrote even before the resignation: "China wants Jensen out, so I want him in." OpenClaw developer Peter Steinberger said that if the spy's goal was to destabilize Nvidia, she had succeeded. He called Huang's removal "rushed."

What the experts say

Ryan Ellis, a professor of communication law and cybersecurity at Northeastern University, sees a structural problem. Nvidia had a relatively flat organization that gave its CEO enormous power, but no succession plan. Tying a public company so closely to a single person is a risky bet, he says: "People fail. People make mistakes. People can be compromised." Apple showed with Tim Cook after Steve Jobs that a fresh start can work.

Whether Nvidia looks internally or externally depends on the investigations, according to Ellis. The affair with a direct report points to bigger governance problems, which would favor an outside candidate. He considers a return by Huang unlikely for now, but doesn't rule it out. Ellis is also worried about the industry as a whole. Chipmakers and AI labs are financially intertwined, and Nvidia helps fund part of the data center buildout. If one of these pillars wobbles, everyone else feels it.

Our take

The petition shows how closely Nvidia's identity is tied to Huang, both inside the company and in public. Legally, the petition carries no weight. The decision rests with the board, which is under pressure from the FBI, Congress and potential export rules. With a spying suspicion and relationships with direct reports, this is about far more than anyone's private life. Corporate governance and national security are at stake. Many questions remain open: what the board's investigation will find, what role Megaspeed actually played in chip purchases for China, and why Huang left before the review was finished. For the AI industry, what matters most is whether Nvidia keeps shipping and investing without interruption under new leadership. The all-hands meeting on November 18 could reveal more.