Jensen Huang Said Successor Must Be Hired, Not Inherited

"Just as I can be fired, the next CEO has to be hired." Jensen Huang said that to Bloomberg's "The Circuit" on October 14, weeks before an affair scandal put his own job in question and forced Nvidia's board to confront the succession question he had sketched in answer.

The interview video was released on Thursday. In it, Huang, who has led Nvidia for 33 years, was asked whether his daughter, Madison Huang — a senior director of product marketing for physical AI at the company — was in line to take over.

"First of all, I don't hope the job on her," Huang said. "And the reason for that is because if that's their aspiration, Spencer or Madison's, they have to go earn it." Spencer is Huang's son, who works as Nvidia's director of robotics product.

Why do the comments matter now?

Huang's remarks landed in the middle of the most turbulent week in Nvidia's recent history. The CEO admitted on Sunday to being "unfaithful" to his wife. At the same time, the company's board said it was investigating whether Huang had been targeted by a foreign-intelligence effort.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Huang had a second affair, this one with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of health care, who reported directly to him. The paper cited five unnamed former employees.

That same day, The Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia's board was preparing to remove Huang. The company's shares fell as much as 8% in after-hours trading on the news. Nvidia did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Against that backdrop, an interview about orderly succession reads differently. The man who insisted the next CEO must be hired on merit now faces a board weighing whether to fire him first.

Who could replace Huang?

The reports have sharpened a question that has long shadowed the world's most valuable chip company: who, if anyone, is ready to replace Jensen Huang?

Nvidia has not publicly named a successor. The reason is structural. The company runs a famously flat organization in which Huang has as many as 60 direct reports, a design that has made it difficult to identify a clear No. 2 executive.

Analysts and former employees have pointed to two internal candidates:

• Colette Kress, Nvidia's CFO, who could serve as an interim leader if Huang departs abruptly.
• Ian Buck, the longtime executive who leads the data-center and accelerated-computing business.

Neither has been tapped for the role, and the company has given no public signal of a transition plan beyond Huang's own statements.

What did Huang say about timing?

In the October interview, Huang said he hoped the next CEO would come from inside Nvidia — even though he said he had no intention of leaving soon.

"I'm really hoping that the next CEO of the company's already at the company," he told Bloomberg. "But 20 years from now, I hope I stay healthy and I hope I continue to earn my keep."

Huang framed CEO development as his own responsibility. "We should create the conditions by which the company continues to thrive," Huang said, "and that the next leader of the company is already at Nvidia."

He also described the weight of the role in expansive terms. "I'm responsible for an entire industry," Huang said. "The pressure of being the CEO is high, and it's supposed to be high."

What happens next?

The board has not announced a decision on Huang's future. If the Wall Street Journal's reporting on preparations to remove him holds, the company will need an interim structure quickly — and Kress is the name analysts cite for exactly that scenario. Huang's October framework, in which the next leader is already inside Nvidia and the job must be earned, may prove to be the operating plan the board now executes under pressure rather than by choice.