Nvidia approaches Arm CEO Haas as employees seek Huang's return, reports say

Detailed summary

Nov 13 (Reuters) - Nvidia's board has approached British chipmaker Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas in its search for a potential successor to Jensen Huang, the Financial Times said on…

Nov 13 (Reuters) - Nvidia's board has approached British chipmaker Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas in its search for a potential successor to Jensen Huang, the Financial Times said on Friday, even as another report said some employees were pushing to bring back the former CEO.

Huang stepped down on Thursday after revelations of extramarital affairs, including one involving a suspected Chinese spy, plunging the chipmaker into crisis and sending shockwaves across an AI industry he helped bankroll.

Haas' name has been making the rounds among analysts since Huang's exit. He spent seven formative years at Nvidia, rising to vice president and general manager of its computing products business, before joining Arm in 2013.

Nvidia's board said it was in the process of selecting a search firm for the CEO role and had not formally engaged any potential candidates.

"Any speculation regarding individual candidates, whether internal or external, is premature," the board said in a statement.

Prior to Huang's resignation, a longtime Nvidia engineer had urged the board in an internal post to consider employee sentiment before taking any action, Wired reported late on Thursday.

The post has since drawn more than 1,600 comments, with several urging the board to find a way to bring Huang back, the technology news platform said, citing internal correspondence it reviewed. Nvidia has about 42,000 employees worldwide.

Billionaire Elon Musk separately said on X that a petition was underway to reinstate Huang and that he would sign it. It was not immediately clear whether Musk was referring to the internal effort reported by Wired.

Nvidia declined to comment on the Wired report as well as Musk's post, while Arm also declined to comment. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

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