Nvidia has approached the boss of Britain’s biggest tech firm to replace Jensen Huang after he resigned in the wake of his affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas, who previously worked at Nvidia, is being lined up as a potential successor, according to reports.
Huang stepped down on Thursday after revelations about his extramarital affairs plunged the chipmaker into crisis.
He confessed to having an affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese executive at a company based in Singapore, who had allegedly been recruited by the Chinese government.
Several former Nvidia employees have also since claimed that the billionaire had another extramarital relationship, this time with Kimberly Powell, 48, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare.
Huang has been married to his wife Lori Huang for 41 years, and they share two children together.
The affair revelations sent shockwaves around the stock market and Nvidia’s shares fell nearly 10 per cent in pre-market trading on Thursday.
Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas, who previously worked at Nvidia, is reportedly being lined up as a potential successor to Jensen Huang
Huang embraces Chinese businesswoman and suspected spy Alice Huang, who is no relation
Huang has been married to his wife Lori Huang for 41 years, and they share two children
Mr Haas is among several candidates being considered for the top job and there is no guarantee he will be offered it or accept, the Financial Times reported.
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 finance chief Colette Kress is currently interim CEO.
The board of $3.87trillion firm 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.
Arm declined to comment on the claims.
Mr Haas became Arm CEO in 2022, overseeing the company’s Nasdaq listing in 2023.
Arm designs processor architectures and licenses them to other companies that develop chip designs.
Historically its strength has been in mobile phones and it is expanding into computers.
Mr Haas’s combination of familiarity with Nvidia and experience running a publicly traded chip company could make him an unusual fit for the role, Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, said.
‘Rene is one of few external candidates who wouldn’t need to be brought up to speed on Nvidia,’ he said.
Some analysts expect the next CEO to break from Huang’s three-decade reign as the hands-on ‘chief conductor’ who personally steered engineering roadmaps, geopolitical negotiations over China exports and massive investments across the AI ecosystem.
A potential shift toward a more institutional leadership structure would come as Nvidia faces heightened regulatory scrutiny and growing consensus among US lawmakers to further restrict the company’s chip exports to China.
