Three days after quitting, Jensen Huang weighs a return to Nvidia's top job

What's going on

Jensen Huang co-founded Nvidia and ran it for 33 years. Under his leadership, the chipmaker became the most important supplier to AI data centers. On Thursday, November 12, he stepped down as president, CEO and member of the board. His resignation followed reports of extramarital relationships. One of them involved Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed. US intelligence agencies reportedly believe she was recruited by Chinese intelligence. The two Huangs aren't related, and Beijing denies the espionage allegations. Huang is also said to have had an affair with an Nvidia vice president, in other words a subordinate. After his resignation, Reuters reported a third relationship with an unnamed employee.

Three days later, the Financial Times (FT), citing several people familiar with the matter, reports that Huang has talked with confidants about returning to the CEO role. Bloomberg and Reuters picked up the report. There's no official decision. Nvidia and a spokesperson for Huang declined to comment to the FT.

The supporters' "war room"

According to the FT, Huang's allies are organizing a coordinated campaign to get the board to reinstate him. One of them describes a Silicon Valley "war room", a kind of command center made up of tech executives. The idea is to lobby the board and also seek backing from the White House. Huang himself supports the effort, the FT writes. Tech site TechBooky points out that these are only the supporters' plans. They don't mean the US government favors a return.

"Everyone who matters in tech outside the big AI labs loves Jensen," a person involved in the campaign told the FT.

Even within his own camp, the doubts are clear. According to the FT, some allies don't know how Huang's reputation could be restored. One admitted:

"Having an affair with a subordinate is a fireable offense."

The campaign adds to an already visible wave of support. According to finance site The Motley Fool, a public petition calling for Huang's reinstatement has gathered more than 80,000 signatures. Hundreds of Nvidia employees have signed a letter making the same demand. According to Yahoo Finance and BeInCrypto, Elon Musk and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney have also thrown their weight behind an open letter titled "Bring Jensen Back".

Two major investors carry more weight. Brad Gerstner, founder of Altimeter Capital, and Gavin Baker, founder of Atreides Management, sent the board a letter they published on X. In it, they call for a "slow, measured and deliberate process" that "keeps all options open, including a potential return of Jensen Huang". The founder, they argue, has earned a process that avoids an "unnecessary rush" to replace him before all the facts are known. They aren't demanding an immediate return. According to regulatory filings cited by CNBC, the two firms together held around 10.6 million Nvidia shares as of June 30.

Washington and experts push back

The US government is pushing back hard. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that Nvidia needs a "dramatic shake-up" in its leadership and should look outside the company for its next CEO. For Bessent, this is about chips, not anyone's private life. On Friday, he had already said everyone at Nvidia must be held accountable if the company's chips ended up in China. The backdrop is US export controls on high-performance AI chips to China. According to Yahoo Finance, the scandal has also raised questions about how Nvidia sells AI chips to Asian buyers with possible links to China.

Dan Ives, an analyst at Yorkville Ives & Co. and a well-known Nvidia bull, rules out a comeback in comments to Newsweek:

"Despite pressure from major shareholders, we see no chance of Jensen returning to Nvidia as CEO. You can't recover from this kind of reputational damage."

At the same time, Ives estimates that Huang is worth "around a trillion dollars" of Nvidia's market value and that no single person can replace him. But the "old Jensen with the black leather jacket and rock-star image" is gone for good, he says. Ives sees an outside candidate as the most likely solution, such as Tim Cook (according to Newsweek, the former Apple CEO and now executive chairman) or Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora. Huang himself, he expects, will probably start a new company or join Musk's SpaceX. None of this has been confirmed.

Charles Elson is an expert in corporate governance, the rules of sound company management, and former head of the Weinberg Center at the University of Delaware. He tells Newsweek: "Bringing him back doesn't solve any problems at all." He points to the national security allegations, possible shareholder lawsuits, and the question of whether the board was adequately informed about Huang's relationships. Companies shouldn't depend so heavily on one person, he says. Boards need emergency succession plans. "No one is above the company's rules, not even the CEO." Elson also asks whether the investors pushing for a return even know all the facts the board has in front of it.

In Russia, VTB Bank chief Andrey Kostin mocked the affair. According to news.mail.ru, he called Huang a "poor guy" and marveled at how quickly details of his private life became public.

What's officially confirmed

The confirmed facts are limited. According to the transition announcement of November 12, CFO Colette Kress is leading the company as interim CEO while remaining CFO. The board plans to consider internal and external candidates for a permanent successor. According to the FT, Arm CEO Rene Haas has been approached as a possible successor. Nvidia said a "formal" process hasn't started yet.

In parallel, the board is running an independent investigation led by law firm Wachtell Lipton. According to TechBooky, it was launched after reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence operation. Nvidia has said there's no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. According to The Motley Fool, the federal government hasn't determined that Alice Huang is a spy. She may not have worked directly for Beijing, but rather been a source (an "asset") who could have passed on information. It could take months to establish whether any laws were broken or anything leaked. Huang has agreed to testify before the US Congress.

It's also unclear whether Huang left voluntarily or was pushed out. The board reportedly met the evening before his resignation to remove him. According to Bloomberg, Huang showed remorse before resigning and described himself, in effect, as a "piece of shit". One key point for the question of power: Huang never held a controlling stake. Only the board decides on a return. In theory, enough shareholders could elect a new board, The Motley Fool notes.

The stock and the quarterly results

The stock is under pressure. On the day of the resignation, it closed down 4.34 percent at $166.19, after falling as much as 14 percent intraday. Over the week, it lost about 15 percent, according to The Motley Fool. It's more than 30 percent below its October 6 record. At roughly 12 times expected earnings, it's the cheapest it has been since 2012. This metric, the price-to-earnings ratio, shows how much investors pay for one dollar of earnings. Bernstein cut its price target from $400 to $200. Billionaire Leo KoGuan told Bloomberg he's no longer buying: "No more investment without Jensen." Rival AMD has pulled further ahead of Nvidia on the stock market than ever before, according to Yahoo Finance.

On Tuesday, November 17, Nvidia reports its third-quarter results, the first under Kress. Investors will be watching demand for AI chips and how the company explains the transition.

The bigger picture

This case affects the entire AI industry. Almost every major AI lab and cloud provider depends on Nvidia's chips, and Huang was the face of that rise. His supporters argue that his relationships with customers and suppliers and his instinct for product strategy are nearly irreplaceable. On the other side: a breach of standard rules on relationships with subordinates, open questions about national security and chip exports, and the declared opposition of the US Treasury Secretary.

So far, the comeback talks have been reported only by the FT and haven't been officially confirmed by anyone. Whether the investigations will clear Huang remains open. The alleged espionage links haven't been proven and shouldn't be treated as fact. What will matter is a statement from the board, not the number of signatures on a petition. Until then, a return looks unlikely, but it can't be ruled out.