For years, Jensen Huang seemed irreplaceable for Nvidia. But that changed within a few days - now the chip giant urgently needs to think about who can replace the charismatic founder and current boss. Investors digested Huang's resignation, announced on Thursday because of a series of extramarital affairs, quite quickly: the shares initially fell by more than 13 percent, but only ended US trading with a loss of around four percent. But Huang's case could have wider implications outside of Nvidia - and affect, among others, Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Who could succeed Huang as Nvidia's CEO?
After CFO Colette Kress took over the leadership on an interim basis, Nvidia's board of directors now wants to examine internal and external candidates for a permanent successor. Analysts see other corporate leaders from the chip industry as possible candidates.
These include Lisa Su, the boss of Intel's competitor AMD, and Rene Haas, who runs the chip designer Arm, whose technology is used in practically all smartphones and tablet computers. According to media reports, Apple manager Johny Srouji is also considered a potential candidate. He helped the iPhone company develop its own chips.
But it's unclear whether anyone on this list would be interested. The job is difficult to fill. Nvidia has not had another boss in more than 30 years and operated with a management structure explicitly tailored to Huang: around 60 top managers reported directly to him. In addition, Huang's affair with a possible Chinese spy raises new questions about the smuggling of Nvidia chips into China.
What does that mean?
The US government banned the delivery of the most powerful Nvidia chips to China. The company and Huang always assured that Nvidia would comply with all bans. However, US authorities have repeatedly come to the conclusion that some companies, including in Asia, were allegedly buying Nvidia technology for their own use, but were actually sending it on to China.
There was also such suspicion against the Megaspeed company from Singapore, for which one of Huang's mistresses from China worked for a time. In recent years, Megaspeed has purchased Nvidia chips for around four billion dollars, as reported by the New York Times, among others.
Who was responsible for this in the US government?
Export control is the responsibility of Trade Minister Howard Lutnick - and he is now coming under pressure. Parliamentarians not only from the Democratic Party, but also from President Donald Trump's Republican circle are demanding answers.
Republican Senator Tim Scott summoned Huang and Lutnick to a public hearing before the Banking Committee in December. According to the spokesman, Lutnick quickly agreed. Scott's colleague John Kennedy, also a Republican, gave a taste of the questions on CNN: "Why did they sell the chips? Were they following their lead? How do they know the chips went to the companies and not the Chinese Communist Party?" Kennedy described the scandal as an “intergalactic freak show.”
Lutnick is now fighting for his job because he has opposed restrictions on chip exports, wrote the Wall Street Journal. Huang had recently said in passing that in the government he mainly had to do with "Howard", i.e. Howard Lutnick.
How well can Nvidia do without Huang?
"I'm not really worried - at least as far as the short- to medium-term development of the business is concerned," semiconductor industry analyst Stacy Rasgon told business broadcaster CNBC. At the same time, he wonders who in the Nvidia executive chair will be able to plan ten years ahead and maintain relationships with suppliers and customers - like those Huang had built up over decades. It will probably take some time before it becomes clear about Nvidia's future development, said Rasgon.
Tech analyst Patrick Moorhead expressed sympathy for industry voices that lamented Huang's departure: "I think people are sad about what this could mean for the future." Other market observers were convinced that Nvidia can cope without the founding boss: "This is a company with a market value of four trillion dollars - not because Jensen is the head of the company, but because they generated sales of 100 billion dollars in the last quarter and grew by 100 percent year-on-year," said Matt Witheiler from the financial firm Wellington Management to the "Financial Times".
How did Nvidia become so important?
Founded 33 years ago, the company originally specialized in graphics cards for computers. It was a volatile business, and the company was particularly popular with gamers. The rise of digital currencies that could be generated with Nvidia graphics cards later caused a special boom.
A few years ago it became apparent that software with artificial intelligence could be trained particularly efficiently using technology from Nvidia. Large AI developers such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are filling entire data centers with Nvidia technology. Huang rode the wave and also brought Nvidia into the business with associated software and processors for operating AI models that had already been trained.
