Tim Cook to Nvidia? Why the Fantasy Hire Won't Happen

Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO on Thursday, capping a week that began with his public apology over an affair with an executive at one of the company's customers — an executive, according to the reports, also suspected of being a Chinese spy.

The co-founder's exit leaves the board of directors with what tech columnist Jason Aten calls the hardest job in corporate America right now: replacing the man who spent more than three decades building one of the two most valuable companies in the world.

Who is running Nvidia today?

CFO Colette Kress steps in as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement, Aten writes. That search carries unusual weight. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and built it into arguably the single most important company in the AI industry — which, by extension, makes it one of the most important companies for the entire global economy.

The board's task is not simply finding a competent operator. The next CEO must understand where computing is heading, not merely how to manage an enormous company, Aten argues.

What did Trump say about Tim Cook?

President Trump weighed in on Truth Social, saying former Apple CEO Tim Cook should replace Huang and calling it a case of "A Legend replaces a Legend!"

As a fantasy, the hire has appeal. Cook spent 15 years running Apple after Steve Jobs died and turned it into a $5 trillion company. Aten concedes there is probably no one alive who better understands what it takes to replace an iconic founder.

The reality, on Aten's reading, points elsewhere.

Why won't Cook take the job?

Cook stepped down as Apple's CEO just two months ago — and he did so, Aten notes, largely because he was ready to be done leading an enormous company. He spent years planning his own succession at Apple. Taking the helm of another trillion-dollar enterprise would undo exactly that.

Aten cites commentator John Gruber's response to Cook's name being floated: if Cook wanted to be CEO of one of the largest companies in the world, he would still be CEO of Apple.

The logic is hard to escape. A 64-year-old executive — Cook's age is not stated in the source, but his 15-year tenure is — who deliberately exited the top job at a $5 trillion company rarely reverses course within two months to start over at a rival.

Who are the real candidates?

Aten says he sees five genuine possibilities, and he ranks the top three as the most likely. His column names a direction rather than a résumé: Nvidia needs someone who understands the future of computing.

That framing rules out the prestige-hire logic behind the Cook speculation. Managing a $5 trillion balance sheet is a different skill from charting the next decade of AI hardware — and Nvidia's board, in Aten's assessment, needs the latter.

The source column did not disclose the five names before publication of the excerpt reviewed here, so the candidate list itself remains unreported.

What happens next?

Kress runs the company in the interim. The board searches. And the tech industry watches the succession at the company that supplies the computational backbone of the AI boom — with a former president's endorsement of Tim Cook filed firmly under fantasy rather than forecast.