Elon Musk signs petition to reinstate Jensen Huang as Nvidia CEO

A letter demanding the reinstatement of Jensen Huang as Nvidia CEO has been circulating online and has already garnered more than 91,000 signatures at the time of writing. Elon Musk said on X that he signed a petition, but it is unclear which one he has signed. At least one large online petition has circulated, with other big names supposedly among the signatories, ostensibly including Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and several prominent shareholders, partners, and current and former Nvidia employees. However, the signatories on this petition apparently aren't verified. Regardless, this petition has gathered over 130,000 signatures.

However, not everyone is keen on bringing Jensen back; Nvidia Vice President for Applied Deep Learning Bryan Catanzaro said on X that an online letter purportedly circulated at Nvidia is fake, and he had no involvement and wouldn’t sign it if it were real. He also reiterated his support for Colette Kress, the newly appointed interim CEO who would run the company while the board looked for a suitable replacement for Jensen.

Jensen Huang’s fall was sudden and dramatic — he went from being one of the leading figures in the hardware needed to run AI to completely resigning from the company he built in under two weeks. It all started when U.S. intelligence sources claimed that Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, apparently close to the former CEO, was passing information to Chinese intelligence. The company initially denied this story, saying, “Megaspeed has been no different than many other regional cloud customers. Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected. Meetings with customers are part of a CEO's job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year.”

But a little over a week after that story, more news came out alleging that Jensen had an affair with the Megaspeed executive, forcing him to finally admit his relationship with the alleged spy. This led to a flurry of investigations by his own company’s board, the U.S. Congress, and the FBI. Just as things were already escalating, another alleged affair surfaced — this time with an Nvidia executive. Amid this whirlwind of scandals and rumors that Jensen would be ousted from the company, Elon Musk said it would be an honor to hire Jensen. Nvidia announced Jensen’s resignation just hours after Musk made the X post.

Despite the nature of his departure, it seems that there is still widespread support for Jensen from Nvidia’s employees, with thousands reportedly rallying behind him and calling for his reinstatement in an internal forum. The Stand with Jensen petition isn’t directly related to Nvidia, but it echoes comments from people inside the company that the former CEO was removed without meaningful due process. “Suspicion or association alone is not a sufficient basis for ending Jensen’s leadership,” the public letter said. “The inquiry must establish the facts, not merely justify an outcome already imposed.”

Jensen Huang’s larger-than-life persona will be difficult to replace, with the board considering candidates including Arm CEO Rene Haas and Apple Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji. It’s probably harder for interim CEO Colette Kress, who’s temporarily stepping into the position while the company is in the midst of massive turmoil, especially with the allegations that Huang was removed because of the mass smuggling of up to 1.5 million Nvidia AI GPUs, and who has the job of reporting its third-quarter results as CEO for the first time on November 17.

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