SANTA CLARA (The Thursday Times) — An online petition urging Nvidia’s board to bring back Jensen Huang as chief executive has passed 130,000 signatures, with Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk among those backing it. Huang resigned on Thursday amid scrutiny over a reported relationship with a chip executive whom US intelligence officials suspect of links to Chinese intelligence.
Musk wrote on X on Friday: “A petition is underway to reinstate Jensen and I’m signing it too.” He also praised Huang’s reliability on computing deliveries and warned that some of Nvidia’s critical deals could be lost without him. Other backers listed on the “Stand with Jensen” website include Replit chief executive Amjad Masad, Epic Games chief executive Tim Sweeney, and Y Combinator chief executive Garry Tan.
What the letter demands
The open letter is addressed to Nvidia’s board and says signers are concerned that Huang was removed “without meaningful due process” after 33 years leading the company he co-founded. It asks the board to reinstate him while an independent investigation establishes the facts, to give him a fair hearing, and to explain its decision publicly, with the evidence behind it. “Suspicion or association alone is not a sufficient basis for ending Jensen’s leadership,” it says. “Jensen deserves due process, not mob justice.”
The petition site showed more than 115,000 signatures on Saturday afternoon, including 5,965 people identifying themselves as current Nvidia employees, 1,108 former employees, and 63,063 shareholders. The count passed 130,000 by Sunday. Those affiliations are self-reported and have not been independently verified, and the organisers said on X they were working to remove fake signatures after joke entries appeared.
Where the company stands
Huang stepped down as Nvidia’s president, chief executive, and board member. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is interim chief executive while the company searches for a permanent successor. Huang has agreed to testify before Congress, and Nvidia’s shares fell sharply over the week.
