Hugging Face CEO Vows Open-Source Fight After Huang’s Nvidia Exit

By Amara Osei

Nvidia’s $12.9 billion plan to acquire Hugging Face, announced in September, would rank as the company’s second-largest acquisition. The $20 billion purchase of chipmaker Groq’s assets in December 2025 remains its largest.

Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue briefly responded to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s departure on Thursday, calling it a “really sad day.” His post promised a more forceful open-source campaign despite the leadership change.

Delangue wrote on X after Huang’s departure. His post said:

“This whole thing sucks, and I wish none of it had happened. It’s a really sad day!”

“But I want to make one thing clear: we’ll keep fighting for open-source AI, harder than ever. This is too important to slow down now. Let’s go!”

What changes after Huang’s exit?

Huang was known as a strong advocate for open-source AI and open-weight models. His departure raised questions about how Nvidia would handle those models now that the company is no longer under his leadership. Delangue’s post implied that open-source advocates could view the change with concern even as he pledged continued support.

Reuters reported in October that, after Nvidia announced the acquisition plan, the U.S. Department of Justice began making inquiries about how the deal could affect competition in the AI market. Nvidia pledged that the platform would preserve open support. The transaction would also allow Nvidia to control a major distribution channel for AI models.

Can Nvidia preserve open support?

The DOJ inquiry sharpens a tension inside the transaction. Nvidia would gain control of a major model-distribution channel while promising to preserve Hugging Face’s open support.

The deal remains set to close in the first half of 2027. Further comment requests on its status, and on whether Hugging Face had spoken with Nvidia’s interim CEO, Collette Kress, went unanswered.

In July, Huang published an AI policy letter in his first-ever post on X. The letter carried signatures from 25 companies, including Microsoft, Meta, Hugging Face, IBM and Palantir, and urged the U.S. government not to over-restrict open-weight AI models.

The letter said open-weight models that “anyone can download, inspect, modify, and run on their own infrastructure” are an important part of the AI ecosystem. It said such models make AI “more accessible, adaptable, and widely available.”

Huang also wrote that open-weight models expand access to the AI economy, strengthen competition and give customers greater control. He said customers would know they would not become locked into a single provider. In the same X post, Huang wrote: “Open models strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty.”

In August, Nvidia announced a $6 billion deal with coding startup Poolside to help build an open AI ecosystem in the United States. The Wall Street Journal reported that the initiative aimed to help the country compete with Chinese companies including DeepSeek and Kimi K3.

Last month, Nvidia expanded its Nemotron family of open-weight models. The company added a 120-billion-parameter model for agents used by enterprises and two new lightweight Bolt models that run on PCs.

Together, the Poolside agreement and Nemotron releases placed open-weight development within a broader Nvidia strategy. The company paired a $6 billion investment with products for enterprise agents and personal computers, following Huang’s July policy letter and January CES advocacy.

Earlier this year, Huang promoted open-source AI during his January keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He said open-source models have “really revolutionized artificial intelligence.”

The unresolved issue is whether Nvidia can preserve Hugging Face’s open support while taking control of a major model-distribution channel. DOJ’s competition inquiry and Nvidia’s post-Huang leadership will test Delangue’s pledge before the deal’s scheduled first-half 2027 close.