Elon Musk, Replit CEO Amjad Masad, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and other tech executives signed a petition demanding Nvidia reinstate its ousted CEO Jensen Huang. The petition, which has gathered more than 115,000 signatures including 5,965 current Nvidia employees, 1,108 former employees and 63,063 shareholders, was posted after Huang resigned on Thursday following revelations of an affair with a chip executive identified as a suspected Chinese spy. Nvidia named CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO and its stock fell 2% on Friday.
The abrupt leadership change threatens continuity in Nvidia's AI hardware roadmap, potentially slowing funding for AI startups that rely on its GPUs. Investor confidence may erode as shareholders and employees publicly question the board's governance, creating broader market volatility in the AI sector.