Bring back Jensen: Why Nvidia's scandal-hit CEO still has Silicon Valley's backing

Despite allegations of multiple affairs, including one involving a suspected Chinese intelligence asset, Jensen Huang has found powerful supporters in Silicon Valley. From Elon Musk and Donald Trump to leading AI entrepreneurs, many want him back at Nvidia. But what makes the man behind America's AI ambitions so difficult to replace? Find out

In Short

• Trump backed Tim Cook as the only suitable successor to Huang
• Musk offered Huang employment and warned founders cannot simply be replaced
• Sweeney praised Huang's innovation from gaming processors to artificial intelligence supercomputers

#BringBackJensen is trending on X. This, despite a string of affairs -- one involving a suspected Chinese intelligence asset and two others involving Nvidia employees -- that preceded the abrupt exit of Jensen Huang from the company he built.

But why are some of the biggest names in US technology calling for his return?

For a man married for more than four decades, the revelations go beyond questions of infidelity. They raise potentially serious national-security concerns, given the stakes in the US-China AI race and Huang's position at its forefront. This is not just another run-of-the-mill CEO sex scandal that ends in resignation, an expensive divorce and is then brushed aside.

Yet, despite the controversies surrounding his departure, voices from within the US AI industry are calling for Huang's return.

They see him as a strong voice for the industry, whether through his advocacy of democratising AI with open-weight models that smaller developers can use or his role as a calming presence amid growing fears of an AI-induced near-apocalyptic event.

Several Nvidia employees have also called for Huang's return, demanding greater transparency about his exit.

According to Wired, one employee wrote in an internal "suggestion box": "If you believe in this mission, bring back THE boss." Another wrote: "Jensen did so many good things, and he needs a second chance."

But the support has extended well beyond Nvidia's offices. Some of the most prominent figures in the technology industry, including those building businesses at the forefront of artificial intelligence, have weighed in on Huang's departure.

Their reactions underline how closely his leadership is tied to the fortunes of an industry increasingly shaped by Nvidia's chips, computing infrastructure and AI ecosystem.

US President Donald Trump was among the most prominent voices to speak in Huang's favour. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Apple chief executive Tim Cook was the only person who should succeed Huang. Praising Huang's performance at Nvidia, Trump described both men as legends and said one should replace the other.

Elon Musk, who is building his own AI venture, xAI, alongside his other businesses, responded to an X user by saying he would consider it an honour to employ Huang. Musk also agreed with a post arguing that the experiences of Steve Jobs and Travis Kalanick showed that replacing a company's founder was not straightforward.

Epic Games chief executive Tim Sweeney described Huang's resignation as a bleak moment for Nvidia, developers, the United States and humanity. Epic, the company behind the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, has long relied on advanced graphics technology, an area in which Nvidia has played a major role.

Sweeney said Huang had founded and expanded one of the few companies to achieve enormous scale while continuing to innovate and make its technology widely available, unlike businesses that had increasingly focused on extracting value.

Before the resignation was announced, Sweeney had recalled how Huang rescued a presentation at the 2015 Game Developers Conference by personally delivering a graphics card. He described Huang as the visionary shaping technology's future, from gaming graphics processors and CUDA to artificial intelligence supercomputers.

Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, whose defence technology company works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and national security, had said the previous night that if China wanted Huang removed, he wanted to bring him in. His comment was posted before Nvidia confirmed Huang's departure.

Automattic co-founder and chief executive Matt Mullenweg revisited an X post published after his brief removal as chief executive in September. The post advised founders that a company without an attempted coup every few years was not employing sufficiently strong leaders. Mullenweg shared it again, joking that he was doing so for no particular reason.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp called Huang a “titan in our industry”, telling POLITICO that he was “going through a very tough time”.

Meanwhile, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar posted a cryptic question on X: “Who benefits?” He was reacting to a post by an X user who questioned the timing of the events, given the geopolitical context and the AI race between the US and China.

David Heinemeier Hansson, chief technology officer at 37signals and creator of the Omarchy Linux distribution, called Huang's departure a waste. In an earlier post, he had argued that Nvidia should not dismiss Huang over marital indiscretions, saying the matter concerned Huang, his wife and an appropriate reprimand from the board. He urged the company to respond proportionately.

Clement Delangue, co-founder and chief executive of Hugging Face, said he regretted the developments and described the resignation as deeply upsetting. He added that Hugging Face would intensify its efforts to support open-source artificial intelligence because the work was too important to lose momentum.

Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw and an OpenAI employee, said that if the suspected spy had intended to destabilise one of the most successful companies in the United States, that objective had been achieved. He said removing Huang appeared hasty and wrong, a view with which Sweeney agreed.

Perplexity co-founder and chief executive Aravind Srinivas thanked Huang for 33 years of decisive leadership. He credited Huang with turning a small start-up into the most valuable company in the United States through persistent improvement and said his determination should be remembered. Srinivas also praised Huang for generously giving founders such as him time and advice, saying this had helped secure a strong future for the United States and artificial intelligence.

Taken together, the reactions point to something larger than a debate over Huang's personal conduct. Nvidia sits at the centre of the global AI infrastructure race, supplying the chips and computing platforms that power much of the industry's ambitions.

For many of its leaders and entrepreneurs, Huang's departure is therefore not simply a corporate leadership change. It raises questions about the future of a company whose technology has become central to America's AI ambitions -- and whether the man who built it can be replaced.

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