From TechCrunch · Connie Loizos · · 2m
Who could replace Jensen Huang at Nvidia?
With Jensen Huang's odds of surviving as CEO at just 30%, speculation swirls over who might lead the chip giant next.
In brief
With Jensen Huang's odds of surviving as CEO at just 30%, speculation swirls over who might lead the chip giant next. Nvidia's Jensen Huang faces potential removal as CEO following an extramarital affair scandal, leaving the board to consider successors from inside and outside the company. Originally reported by…
Huang's survival odds collapse
Jensen Huang's odds of surviving the week as Nvidia CEO sit at just thirty percent, according to betting platform Kalshi, despite building one of the world's most valuable companies.
The affair scandal
Huang confessed to an extramarital affair, but as of Wednesday afternoon it remains unclear whether he meant Alice Huang, a Chinese executive suspected by U.S.
No succession plan in place
Even if Huang is pushed out as CEO, the board could keep him as chairman, a role Nvidia does not currently have.
Lisa Su, AMD's rival CEO
Lisa Su runs Nvidia's most credible rival and is a distant cousin of Huang.The Information floated her name, but analysts question why she would leave AMD for Nvidia when her company benefits from Nvidia's distraction.
Eric Schmidt, the Google veteran
Eric Schmidt ran Google from two thousand one to two thousand eleven, chaired the National Security Commission on AI from two thousand eighteen to two thousand twenty-one, and now runs Relativity Space.
“parachute in tomorrow and do a very good job”
Schmidt's own baggage problem
Schmidt brings significant baggage when it comes to his own extramarital dalliances, making it hard to see him clearing the board for that reason.
Lip-Bu Tan, Intel's struggling CEO
Intel's CEO knows chips and might welcome an escape.Last month Intel reported third-quarter revenue up twenty-one percent to sixteen point five billion dollars, then warned fourth-quarter results would fall short.
Bret Taylor, the unflappable operator
Bret Taylor, former Salesforce co-CEO and OpenAI board chair, now runs AI startup Sierra.He co-created Google Maps, served as Facebook's CTO, and chaired Twitter's board through its sale to Elon Musk.
Ian Buck, the CUDA architect
Ian Buck, Nvidia VP who helped develop CUDA, the chip software central to Nvidia's AI dominance, has been floated as a possible successor by analysts and former employees.Kalshi traders give him a middling shot.
Insiders with chip pedigree
Andrew Bell, Nvidia's senior vice president of hardware engineering, arrived twenty-five years ago as a fresh Cornell grad and has been on an upward trajectory.
The wild card: Lori Huang
Lori Huang, Jensen's wife, met him as lab partners at Oregon State before Nvidia existed.
What it means
Nvidia's Jensen Huang faces potential removal as CEO following an extramarital affair scandal, leaving the board to consider successors from inside and outside the company.
