Nvidia employees want Jensen Huang back as CEO

Felix Laurent 14 Nov 2026 5 min read

Big tech

Some Nvidia employees are asking the company's board to bring back Jensen Huang, a day after he resigned as CEO. An internal suggestion box post asking directors to weigh staff sentiment has drawn more than 1,600 comments. Most of them favor his return, WIRED reported on November 13, 2026.

"If you believe in the mission, bring back THE boss," one anonymous employee wrote under the post. The board has not said whether it would consider reinstating Huang. Nvidia and its new chair, Harvey Jones, did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.

What Nvidia employees are asking for

A longtime engineer submitted the suggestion box post before Huang resigned. It asked the board to finish its investigation and share what it found with staff. It also asked directors to formally poll employees on Huang's future as CEO. After the resignation, the comments turned into calls to bring him back.

"We are all humans and can make mistakes. Jensen did so many good things and he needs a second chance," another employee wrote, according to WIRED. An employee with about two years at the company told WIRED that the wish to see Huang reinstated is widespread. "Nvidia is Nvidia because of Jensen," the employee said.

The push went beyond the internal post. One staffer sent a companywide email demanding transparency about why Huang left. "I stand by Jensen," the email said. About two dozen employees also defended Huang on LinkedIn within hours of his resignation. WIRED said it found no posts from Nvidia staff welcoming his departure.

The 1,600 figure needs some context, though.

How many Nvidia employees back Huang

The 1,600 comments are replies to one internal post. They are not signatures on a formal petition, and one employee can leave several comments. Nvidia employs tens of thousands of people, so the visible support is loud but it is not a companywide vote.

A separate survey on Blind, the anonymous workplace app, points in the same direction. Blind asked professionals, including Nvidia staff, about Huang's future while the scandal was unfolding.

Blind survey question	Nvidia employees	All professionals
Huang should remain CEO	88%	60%
Board should remove him	1%	22%
He should step down voluntarily	11%	18%
His exit would significantly hurt Nvidia	54%	42%
Board should retain him despite instability	82%	52%

Blind did not publish how many Nvidia employees answered. The general survey drew 1,689 responses to the main question.

Part of the anger is about how quickly the exit happened.

Why staff say the process was rushed

Nvidia's independent directors opened an investigation on November 8, the same day Huang admitted to infidelity in a note to employees. Many employees expected the board to finish that review before any big change, WIRED reported. Instead, Huang resigned on November 12, just as the probe was getting started.

The week moved fast. On November 11, The New York Times reported a second relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reports directly to Huang. The Wall Street Journal reported the same day that the board was weighing his removal. Hours after the resignation, Reuters reported a third affair with another, unnamed employee. Nvidia, Huang and Powell have not confirmed the reports.

The national security part of the story is less settled than it first looked. The scandal started with reports that Huang had a relationship with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive whom US officials suspect of working for Chinese intelligence. We covered that story when it first broke in October. On November 12, Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department has not concluded whether she was a spy. Beijing denies it.

New reporting also shows how Huang's last days at Nvidia went.

What new reports say about Huang's final days

The Financial Times was first to report the affair. After that story, Nvidia's general counsel Tim Teter went to Huang's home to confront him, and Huang confessed, Bloomberg reported. On Wednesday night, when he gave up the CEO role, he looked "broken and shattered." He kept saying things like "whatever" and "I don't care," according to Bloomberg.

President Trump called Huang several times that week and at first encouraged him to fight for his job, The New York Times and CNN reported. After the resignation, Trump called the saga "so sad to see" and said Huang had done a "fantastic job."

The Wall Street Journal added a detail about his successor. In an August finance meeting, Huang reportedly called Colette Kress "a deer in the headlights" and said she could not help him shape strategy. Kress had questioned how to value Nvidia's credit guarantees for data center operators that could not pay for chips up front. Earlier in the year she had also scaled back Nvidia's financing for OpenAI's Ohio data center project. Talks had covered $250 billion in credit, but Nvidia committed $105 billion, TechCrunch reported, citing the Journal.

Kress, Nvidia's CFO since 2013, is now the interim CEO and keeps the CFO job. The board will consider internal and external candidates for the permanent role.

Nvidia stock since the scandal began

Nvidia shares have fallen almost every day since the first reports about the affair. The stock dropped below $4 trillion in market value during trading on November 13, CNBC reported.

Date	NVDA close	What happened
November 3	$206.69	before the affair reports
November 9	$178.67	first trading day after Huang's note to staff
November 11	$173.73	NYT reports a second affair, board weighs ouster
November 12	$166.19	Huang resigns, Kress named interim CEO
November 13	$162.85	WIRED reports the employee push

That is a drop of about 21% in less than two weeks. Before the resignation, analysts told CNBC that losing Huang could cost Nvidia as much as 20% of its value. We tracked the earlier slide in our piece on the board probe and Nvidia stock.

Can the Nvidia board bring Huang back

There is one recent precedent. In November 2023, OpenAI's board fired Sam Altman, and hundreds of employees threatened to quit. Altman was back within days. Several outlets have compared the Nvidia push with that episode.

The cases differ in important ways. Altman was fired without a public reason and denied wrongdoing. Huang resigned after admitting to an affair, with more relationships reported since, including one with a direct report.

Huang also faces Congress. House Foreign Affairs chair Brian Mast said Huang agreed to testify behind closed doors before Thanksgiving. Republicans on three House committees are also pressing for answers on Nvidia's security protocols. Senators have also asked Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to appear before the Senate Banking Committee.

The first real test for the new leadership comes on Tuesday, November 17, when Kress presents Nvidia's third-quarter results.

Will Jensen Huang return to Nvidia

A return looks unlikely for now. The employee push is real and loud, and the Blind numbers show how many people inside Nvidia tie the company's success to Huang personally. But the board accepted his resignation after an affair with a direct report, two more reported relationships and a possible spy case. Reinstating him before the investigation ends would expose directors to legal and political risk that staff support cannot offset.

The more likely effect of the campaign is pressure on the process. Employees want the board to finish the review, share the findings and listen to staff before it picks a permanent CEO. If the Justice Department never confirms the spy allegations, that demand will get louder.