Nvidia scrambles to replace CEO Jensen Huang after bombshell affair — here are the possible successors

Nvidia’s board is scrambling to find a successor for ousted CEO Jensen Huang after his bombshell affair with an alleged Chinese spy — as investors fear that the tech visionary who founded the company 33 years ago is a nearly irreplaceable boss. 

Possible successors could on the one hand include internal execs like Colette Kress or, alternatively CEOs at rival chipmaking giants like AMD’s Lisa Su or Arm Holdings’ Rene Haas. Even former Apple CEO Tim Cook’s name has been floated by President Trump.

The embattled chipmaking giant has hired an outside firm to help it hunt for both internal and external candidates, according to Bloomberg.

Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, was named interim CEO on Thursday while the board conducts a search for a permanent successor. She’s been with the firm for 13 years. 

Firms often turn to their CFOs in times of crisis for a sense of stability, though they’re often seen as more of a stopgap than a permanent fix. However, Kress’ financial expertise could be a plus as many investors are currently concerned over the massive costs of the AI buildout.

Rene Haas, CEO of Arm Holdings, a British semiconductor firm, has also emerged as a likely contender. Arm Holdings had been collaborating with Nvidia on AI chips for over a decade. In 2020, Nvidia even tried to acquire Arm in a failed $40 billion deal.

Haas is also currently the CEO of SoftBank Group International, which owns Arm, a sign that he’s able to juggle several major firms, and has both engineering and management experience. He even previously worked at Nvidia for seven years. 

Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su is another rumored successor. She’s been running one of Nvidia’s largest competitors for over a decade, attending many of the same conferences and White House dinners as Huang. However, AMD is still just a fraction of Nvidia’s size, with a roughly $950 billion market value compared to Nvidia’s $4 trillion. 

The panic to find a successor has led to some surprising names being thrown around, like Tim Cook, who resigned as Apple’s CEO this summer after 15 years at the helm and moved into the executive chairman role.

President Trump argued in a post on Truth Social Thursday morning that Cook is the “only one man to take [Huang’s] place,” saying, “A Legend replaces a Legend!”

Ives also floated Cook’s name as “a dark horse candidate” to replace Huang given his reputation as a steady tech industry leader, since Cook was the first to step into the CEO role at Apple in the post-Steve Jobs era. 

Nic Puckrin, a former Goldman Sachs analyst and founder of Coin Bureau, argued that the Cook rumor “is a bit of a bizarre one. He does have the experience and political connections, but he’s only just stepped down from one demanding CEO role – why would he want to take on another?”

Cook’s resume is also chock-full of experience with consumer products, not semiconductors, Puckrin noted. More realistic candidates could include Nvidia CFO Colette Kress; Ian Buck, another Nvidia exec; or Rene Haas, CEO of Arm Holdings, he said.

Buck currently runs Nvidia’s AI chips division and could be seen as a strong choice to replace Huang since he’s a familiar face to customers and boasts an extensive engineering background. 

He’s also been with Nvidia for more than 20 years – but that could actually be a downside. His lack of operational experience could push Nvidia toward external candidates, especially as they look for someone who’ll be able to defend AI on a world stage. 

“Rene Haas is a standout external candidate. He’s the CEO of not one, but two companies, so clearly has the ability to manage a sprawling portfolio, and also has both an engineering background and management experience,” Puckrin told The Post. 

“The question, I think, is whether one person can even fill Huang’s boots, or if there will be a need to change the management structure entirely to accommodate more than one leadership role.” 

Apple’s hardware boss Johny Srouji, Amazon Web Services chief Matt Garman, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and Google computer scientist Amin Vahdat have also been floated as possible contenders. 

Huang on Thursday resigned as CEO, president and a member of the board, effective immediately, after his affair with an alleged Chinese spy and a reported second extramarital affair threw his semiconductor giant into turmoil. 

Finding a replacement for him is no small task, as Huang had about 60 direct reports, a direct hand in day-to-day operations and no clear successor lined up. 

He’s also one of the most recognizable leaders of the AI boom, known for his signature leather jackets and all-black outfits, and had cultivated a close relationship with President Trump. 

“The old Jensen, the black leather jacket, the Godfather of AI, the rock star viewed as the face of the AI boom, is over and in the past,” Dan Ives, partner and analyst at Yorkville Ives & Co, wrote in a note Thursday.

Huang’s two children – daughter Madison Huang and son Spencer Huang, along with Madison’s husband, Nico Caprez – work at Nvidia. Caprez has the most senior-level role of the three as vice president of global AI infrastructure growth. 

Caprez and Madison have reportedly clashed with Kress, the interim CEO, in the past, so they could see their sway at the company dwindle even further with her in charge, according to The Information.