Tech leaders react to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's resignation

Nvidia announced this morning that Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO following reports of two affairs, including one with an alleged Chinese spy and one with a direct report. The situation surrounding Huang has unfolded quickly, with The New York Times only reporting on Friday that Huang and the suspected spy were “close” before other dominoes started to fall, leading to a swift fall from grace for one of the biggest names in technology. Hours after Huang’s resignation was announced, Reuters reported that he also had an “intimate relationship” with another Nvidia employee.

Prominent voices in technology have come out in support of Huang, with some calling the resignation a “waste” and a sad day for “all humanity.” The narrative among those leaders on X, at least, is that Huang’s resignation was rushed — perhaps an overreaction to salacious news stories about his personal life. Some others have had a more neutral reaction, commenting more on Huang’s achievements at the company’s helm.

President Donald Trump said on Truth Social: “NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place - TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!”

Elon Musk, SpaceX and Tesla CEO, said in a reply to an X user that it would “be an honor” to hire Huang. He also replied to a post that said “You’d think we’d have learned from Steve Jobs and Travis Kalanick that one does not just simply replace the founder…” by saying “True words.”

Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO, said that today is “A sad day for NVIDIA, developers, America, and all humanity. Jensen founded and ran one of the few companies to reach a massive scale while driving massive continued innovation and ubiquity, while others fell into the trap of ever-increasing extraction.” Ahead of Huang’s resignation, Sweeney posted about how Huang “saved” a GDC 2015 presentation by dropping off a graphics card and said that “The dude truly is the visionary driver of the future of tech from the gaming GPU era to CUDA to AI supercomputers.”

Palmer Luckey, Anduril founder, said last night before the resignation: “China wants Jensen out, so I want him in.”

Matt Mullenweg, Automattic co-founder and CEO, reposted an X post that followed his brief September ouster as CEO: “Founder advice: If you don’t have a coup attempt every few years, you’re not hiring strong enough leaders.” He added, “Just putting this back out there, for no reason whatsoever.”

David Heinemeier Hansson, 37signals CTO and creator of the Omarchy Linux distribution, said: “What a waste,” replying to his own post from hours before: “NVIDIA would be wrong to fire Jensen. His marital indiscretions are between him, his wife, and a reprimand from the board. Have some proportionality.”

Clément Delangue, co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, which Nvidia recently acquired for almost $13 billion, said: “This whole thing sucks, and I wish none of it had happened. It’s a really sad day! But I want to make one thing clear: we’ll keep fighting for open-source AI, harder than ever. This is too important to slow down now. Let’s go!”

Changpeng Zhao, former Binance CEO, stated: “It’s a mistake for Nvidia to let Jensen resign.”

Peter Steinberger, OpenClaw creator and OpenAI employee, said: “If that Spy’s goal was to destabilize one of the most successful American companies, they achieved their goal. Ousting Jensen feels rushed and not right.” Sweeney replied to this, saying “I agree.”

Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity co-founder and CEO, thanked Huang for “33 years of bold leadership” in a post this morning. He added: “You built a small startup into America’s most valuable company, with relentless improvement. Your grit and perseverance should always be remembered. Your personal generosity with time and advice to founders like me has secured a bright future for America and AI.”

Jason Calacanis, All-In Podcast host, reposted Trump’s post, tagging Tim Cook and telling him to “Keep the seat warm” for Huang while “the investigation is sorted out” and saying that “America needs you Mr. Cook.” Last night, he also noted that Nvidia shareholders suffered.