SAN FRANCISCO: Tesla CEO Elon Musk has joined more than 43,000 signatories backing an open letter that urges Nvidia’s board to reinstate co-founder Jensen Huang as chief executive, two days after his sudden resignation ended a 33-year tenure.
Hosted on a volunteer-run website called Stand with Jensen, the petition calls on directors to bring Huang back while an independent inquiry establishes the facts behind his departure, according to TOI.
Musk confirmed his support in a post on X on November 13, joining prominent technology figures such as Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, Y Combinator’s Garry Tan, Replit CEO Amjad Masad, Cohere’s Aidan Gomez, and Binance co-founder Yi He.
The campaign’s live counter lists 2,980 current Nvidia employees, 454 former staff members, 24,097 shareholders, and 15,517 general supporters. Organisers clarify that neither Nvidia nor Huang endorses the letter and that user affiliations remain self-reported and unverified. Inside the company, an internal suggestion-box thread asking the board to consider staff sentiment has gathered over 1,600 comments, largely supporting Huang’s return.
Signatories argue that the board removed Huang without adequate due process and note that no public proof has been presented showing that the woman linked to the controversy acted as a spy. While acknowledging that "thirty-three years of leadership do not place anyone above accountability," the letter insists that accountability requires evidence and a fair hearing. It outlines three demands: reinstating Huang or providing an evidence-based reason for his exit, launching an independent investigation with a clear timeline, and issuing a public explanation of the board’s findings.
Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in April 1993 with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, led the chipmaker from graphics processors into artificial intelligence hardware. Under his leadership, Nvidia became the first publicly traded firm to surpass a $5 trillion market valuation in October 2025.
His exit on November 12 followed weeks of mounting scrutiny. After reports surfaced on October 29 linking him to Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed whom US intelligence agencies suspect of spying for China, Huang admitted in an employee memo that he had been "unfaithful" to his wife.
Subsequent reporting by The New York Times and Reuters alleged two additional affairs involving Nvidia staff, including healthcare vice president Kimberly Powell, who reported directly to him.
Following Huang’s resignation, Nvidia appointed Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO and named longtime director Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever board chair.
Under Nvidia’s corporate bylaws, the open letter carries no binding authority, as the board retains control over executive appointments and calling a special shareholder meeting requires investors holding at least 15 percent of voting shares for a full year.
Nvidia’s leadership will face its first major public test next week when the company reports quarterly earnings on November 17 and Kress addresses employees at an all-hands meeting on November 18. Huang is also scheduled to testify before US congressional panels, including the Senate Banking Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee, later this month.
(With inputs from media reports)