Elon Musk has warned that Nvidia could lose some of its most important business deals following the departure of Jensen Huang, saying many of the chipmaker's key arrangements rested on the former chief executive's personal relationships rather than written contracts.
"Jensen drove supply chain brilliantly at Nvidia, but many of those deals were a handshake with Jensen, not a written contract," Musk wrote in a post on X on Saturday. "Without Jensen, at least some of those critical deals will be lost."
Musk was responding to an interview with Dylan Patel, founder and chief analyst of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis, who argued that Huang had personally persuaded even relatively small suppliers to dedicate much of their production capacity to Nvidia. Patel said Google was already seeking capacity from suppliers Huang had persuaded to prioritise Nvidia, according to reports of the interview.
Musk also said he had signed a petition seeking Huang's reinstatement as Nvidia chief executive. The petition, titled "Thirty-three years deserve an answer", had attracted more than 44,000 signatures by Saturday, according to the Indian Express. The petition says it is concerned Huang was removed "without meaningful due process", though the decision rests with Nvidia's board, which has appointed chief financial officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive while it searches for a permanent successor.
Huang resigned on Thursday, ending a 33-year tenure as chief executive, president and a member of the board of the company he co-founded in 1993. His departure followed reports of extramarital affairs, including one involving Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed whom U.S. intelligence officials have identified as a suspected Chinese spy. Megaspeed is under investigation over claims it diverted Nvidia's advanced AI chips to China in breach of U.S. export controls.
Nvidia's board has approached Arm Holdings chief executive Rene Haas as a potential successor, the Financial Times reported on Friday. Musk did not identify any specific company or supplier Nvidia could lose, and his comments were a warning about the possible difficulty of maintaining certain relationships without Huang, not confirmation that contracts had already been lost. Nvidia declined to comment on Musk's post.
