Nvidia succession talk intensifies as Kalshi gives Huang 30% odds

By Amara Osei

Kalshi traders put Jensen Huang’s odds of surviving the week at 30%, leaving Nvidia without an apparent succession plan if its chief executive leaves. The review calls his removal nearly inconceivable, but treats the succession question as a speculative parlor game rather than an active process.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the object of Huang’s confessed extramarital affair remained unclear. One possibility was Alice Huang, a Chinese executive whom U.S. intelligence suspected of spying for her country. The other was Kimberly Powell, a Nvidia executive who reports to Huang; The New York Times cited five sources who said Powell had also been his paramour.

What happens if Huang leaves the CEO role?

Even if Huang is pushed out as CEO, the review says the board members he made very rich are unlikely to cut him loose entirely. Huang could stay on as chairman, a role Nvidia does not currently have, unless another damaging revelation intervenes. His 60 direct reports would get a closer look.

No apparent succession plan exists. The review calls Nvidia one of the world’s most valuable and, in many people’s view, dangerously powerful companies, yet says the tide has turned against Huang.

Could Lisa Su or Eric Schmidt take over?

• Lisa Su. The Information floated the AMD CEO as a possible successor this week. She runs what the review calls Nvidia’s most credible rival and is Huang’s distant cousin. AMD stands to benefit while Nvidia remains distracted by an investigation, congressional briefings and smaller dramas, giving Su little reason to leave.

• Eric Schmidt. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Yale School of Management’s senior associate dean for leadership studies, picked Schmidt and said he could “parachute in tomorrow and do a very good job.”

Schmidt ran Google from 2001 to 2011, chaired the National Security Commission on AI from 2018 to 2021, and now runs the rocket company Relativity Space.

His experience spans chips, software, government and rockets, according to the review. His own extramarital dalliances make board clearance difficult, the review says.

What does Intel’s warning show?

• Lip-Bu Tan. Intel’s CEO might, in the review’s view, welcome a soft landing. Last month, Intel reported third-quarter revenue up 21% to $16.5 billion, then warned that fourth-quarter results would fall short of Wall Street’s forecasts.

  Intel stock plunged 20% in after-hours trading after the warning, having already slid more than 30% since September.

  The review links Intel’s pressure to the AI boom’s memory-chip shortage, which raised PC prices and cut PC sales. PC chips form a large part of Intel’s business, and the review presents a move to Nvidia as a striking escape hatch.

What does Bret Taylor bring?

• Bret Taylor. The former Salesforce co-CEO and OpenAI board chair now runs the AI startup Sierra. Taylor co-created Google Maps, served as Facebook’s CTO, and chaired Twitter’s board through its sale to Elon Musk.

  He took over as OpenAI’s board chair after the “Blip,” Sam Altman’s firing and fast return. The review says companies turn to Taylor for an “unflappable, likable adult” and that he likely knows nearly every Nvidia customer.

Which Nvidia insiders could step up?

• Ian Buck. The Nvidia vice president helped develop CUDA, the chip software central to Nvidia’s dominance in AI. Analysts and former employees have floated him, and Kalshi traders give him a middling shot.

The review says Buck could suit a board seeking a builder at the helm. His Stanford PhD becomes more viable if Huang keeps the chairman title and pushes for a successor he can work with, the review says.

Andrew Bell. Nvidia’s senior vice president of hardware engineering joined 25 years ago as a fresh Cornell graduate and has advanced steadily since. He reports directly to Huang, like Buck and dozens of other executives presumed to be under scrutiny.

The review says Bell has the chip pedigree for the role.

Colette Kress. Nvidia’s CFO is the insider most often named, although analysts say she may not be a natural successor as an innovator and visionary. The comparison favors Bell’s hardware pedigree, according to the review.

Lori Huang. Nobody has floated Jensen Huang’s wife as a candidate, but the review argues that her history supports continuity. She met Jensen as a lab partner at Oregon State and worked alongside him before Nvidia existed. After graduating, she worked as a microchip engineer at Silicon Graphics; Jensen said she made more money than he did.

She later scaled back to raise their family and now co-leads the family trusts. The review presents her as a technically capable, more humble continuity choice if the board wants another Huang at the top.

The review expects Huang’s fate to become clear soon; the decisive variable is whether Nvidia’s board preserves his influence through a new chairman role or forces a clean break.