With Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stepping down amid a series of scandals, names ranging from Nvidia Vice President Ian Buck to Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas are being floated as potential successors. [AFP]
With Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stepping down amid a series of scandals, names ranging from Nvidia Vice President Ian Buck to Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas are being floated as potential successors. [AFP]

Just four days after an extramarital affair scandal broke, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned, with names ranging from Nvidia Vice President Ian Buck to Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas and AMD CEO Lisa Su emerging as potential successors.

With Huang's departure, Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO. As a finance specialist, Kress is widely seen as a placeholder — analysts expect the permanent successor to be someone with deep technical expertise, given Nvidia's standing as a highly specialized chipmaker.

Nvidia Vice President Ian Buck is widely regarded as the leading internal candidate to succeed Jensen Huang as CEO. [Nvidia]
Nvidia Vice President Ian Buck is widely regarded as the leading internal candidate to succeed Jensen Huang as CEO. [Nvidia]

Among internal candidates, Ian Buck is considered the frontrunner. Buck has led development of CUDA, the software platform that underpins AI development and deployment, and has overseen Nvidia's AI hardware and software products since joining the company in 2004. He has also testified before the US Congress on AI issues and advised the White House.

On the external side, Rene Haas, CEO of British chip designer Arm Holdings, has drawn attention. Before joining Arm, Haas spent seven years as a Nvidia vice president, leading its computing products division. Arm has long had close ties with Nvidia in semiconductor design, and Nvidia attempted to acquire Arm in 2020.

Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas has also been mentioned as a candidate for Nvidia's next CEO. [Getty Images]
Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas has also been mentioned as a candidate for Nvidia's next CEO. [Getty Images]

Bloomberg has also floated AMD CEO Lisa Su as a potential successor. Coincidentally, Huang and Su are distant relatives — Huang is Su's first cousin twice removed. The complication is that Nvidia and AMD are direct competitors. Executive contracts typically include non-compete clauses restricting moves to rival firms for a set period after departure, which could make recruiting Su difficult if she is bound by such an agreement.

Prediction markets are leaning toward Buck as the most likely next CEO. On the forecasting platform Kalshi, Buck topped the "Who will be the next Nvidia CEO?" market at 37 percent. Kress came in at 16 percent and Haas at around 9 percent.

Former Apple CEO Tim Cook handed the CEO role to John Ternus in September and moved to executive chairman of the board. President Donald Trump said Cook should take over as Nvidia's next CEO as the company faces an unprecedented leadership vacuum. [Getty Images]
Former Apple CEO Tim Cook handed the CEO role to John Ternus in September and moved to executive chairman of the board. President Donald Trump said Cook should take over as Nvidia's next CEO as the company faces an unprecedented leadership vacuum. [Getty Images]

Amid the speculation, President Donald Trump weighed in Thursday (local time), posting on his SNS account that former Apple CEO Tim Cook was the only person fit to replace Huang. Cook stepped down as Apple's CEO in September, handing the role to John Ternus, and now serves as executive chairman of the board. On Kalshi, Cook's odds of becoming Nvidia's next CEO stood at around 4 percent.

Other names in circulation include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Apple Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji. Schmidt has drawn interest for his track record of stepping in as a steadying force when Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page struggled with management, helping transform the company from a startup into a tech giant.


kate01@heraldcorp.com