Nvidia announced on November 12 that its leader, Jensen Huang, would immediately step down from his three roles as president, CEO, and director. As soon as the news broke, Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue wrote a long post on LinkedIn. He used two instances of "awful" to express his shock: "I really wish none of this had ever happened. This is an incredibly sad day," and promised that the company would work "harder than ever" to protect open-source AI, stressing that at this moment "we cannot slow down," because the open-source camp needs someone to carry the flag at the forefront.
An Interim Helmsman Steps InThe power vacuum will be filled by current Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, who will temporarily take charge of Nvidia while the board also begins the process of selecting a new CEO. Jensen Huang helped found the company in 1993 and took it from a small graphics chip maker all the way to the center of global AI computing power. The training clusters of OpenAI and Google all run on its GPUs. His sudden withdrawal leaves considerable uncertainty hanging over this computing empire.
A Delicate Moment in the Acquisition WindowIronically, this farewell comes right as Nvidia is pushing forward a deal to swallow Hugging Face for about $12.9 billion, with closing expected in the first half of 2027. As the central figure at the company being acquired, Delangue's sadness and his rallying cry to "defend open source at all costs" land exactly at the moment when the U.S. Department of Justice is making inquiries about the deal's impact on the AI competition landscape. On one side, a chip giant wants to buy a landmark of the open-source community; on the other, a community flag-bearer is shedding tears for an old ally. This union has suddenly gained a bit more tension.
