Before Nvidia publicly announced Jensen Huang’s departure, Elon Musk said he wanted to hire him.
“That would be an honor,” Musk wrote on X Wednesday evening, responding to a post that read: “Elon please hire Jensen.” The exchange followed a Wall Street Journal report that Nvidia’s board was preparing to oust its cofounder, according to Reuters.
By Thursday morning, Nvidia announced that Huang had resigned as president, CEO, and a director, effective immediately. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor, and longtime director Harvey Jones becomes Nvidia’s first board chair.
The exit removes the cofounder who built Nvidia into the chipmaker at the center of the AI boom and No. 16 on the 2026 Fortune 500. Investors had already felt it: Nvidia lost $450 billion in market value in the days after Huang admitted to an affair, Fortune reported.
That affair was with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, an Nvidia cloud partner. U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe she was acting on behalf of Chinese intelligence, which Beijing denies. Huang publicly apologized for his infidelity on Sunday.
Nvidia’s board initially stood by him, saying on Sunday, “The Board has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team,” even as it announced an independent investigation. It said it had no reason to believe company secrets or national security had been compromised.
But on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Huang had also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, who reported directly to him. The board reportedly met later that day to decide his future.
After the resignation was announced Thursday, Reuters reported that Huang had also had an intimate relationship with another Nvidia employee, citing two people familiar with the matter. Nvidia and Huang have not confirmed the report.
Musk’s five-word response did not specify a job, a company, or whether the two had discussed working together. But it suggested that losing the job Huang held for 33 years had not entirely spoiled his employment prospects.
Musk and Huang go back years
Musk once “begged” for Huang’s chips.
In September 2024, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison recounted a dinner with Musk and Huang at Nobu in Palo Alto, where he and Musk found themselves pleading for more of Nvidia’s coveted graphics processing units.
“I would describe the dinner as Oracle—me and Elon begging Jensen for GPUs,” Ellison said. “Please take our money. Please take our money. By the way, I got dinner. No, no, take more of it. We need you to take more of our money please.”
Musk has since made his admiration public on several occasions. “I am a huge admirer of Nvidia and Jensen btw. That market cap is well-deserved,” he wrote on X in March, adding that SpaceX AI and Tesla expected to keep buying Nvidia chips at scale.
The relationship extends beyond business. In May, a user posted photographs of the pair taken a decade apart with the caption: “The most important thing in life is having true friends.” Musk reposted it with one word: “True.”
In October, he struck a more personal note on X: “Old friends are the best friends. Jensen rocks.” The post accompanied a clip of Huang discussing the companies’ collaboration on computing infrastructure for space.
The admiration goes both ways. Huang said Musk was “working on exactly the right things,” Fortune reported in January 2025, and later that year called Musk “the ultimate GPU,” comparing his ability to juggle complex information to the chips Nvidia sells.
Tech and finance leaders lined up behind Huang
Musk is far from the only prominent business figure who thinks Huang still has something to offer.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney urged Nvidia’s board to retain him on X, comparing a potential dismissal to “Apple firing Steve Jobs level of idiocy.” He credited Huang with driving successive eras of technology, from gaming graphics to AI supercomputers.
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman took a more personal approach, arguing that even exceptional people make mistakes and urging support for Huang and his family. Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire criticized Huang’s conduct but described him as “irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership.” Musk endorsed Maguire’s post with a brief reply: “I agree.”
Others who publicly backed Huang include Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, and 37signals CTO David Heinemeier Hansson. The support offers a glimpse of the network Huang could draw on for whatever comes next.
Congress comes before Huang’s next job
For now, that next chapter remains unannounced. Musk’s public welcome has not come with a job description, and it is unclear whether Huang intends to join another company, start something new, or step away from running one.
His departure also does not resolve Nvidia’s internal investigation or the FBI inquiry into his relationship with Alice Huang, which President Donald Trump has said is underway.
Financially, Huang has plenty of room to weigh his options. He still holds about 3.6% of Nvidia, making him its fourth-largest shareholder, according to Reuters. His net worth fell roughly $10 billion this week to about $145 billion, Fortune reported, knocking him out of the world’s 10 richest people.
A divorce could cut that net worth substantially. His wife, Lori Huang, could be entitled to half, depending on any marital agreements and which assets qualify as separate property, Forbes reported. Neither has publicly announced plans to divorce.
Before any new role, Huang has a date on Capitol Hill. He has agreed to testify before lawmakers, with an appearance expected before Thanksgiving, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast said, according to Bloomberg. Mast has said Huang has “very serious questions to answer.”
