Who is leading the race to succeed Jensen Huang as Nvidia's CEO

Former Nvidia president and CEO Jensen Huang. EFE/EPA/RITCHIE B. TONGO Jensen Huang's resignation as chief executive of Nvidia immediately raised a question that is shaking the global tech industry: who will be able to steer the most valuable company in the chip sector amid the artificial intelligence frenzy. Huang, a figure of enormous weight within the company — with around 60 direct reports — left the post on Thursday after two extramarital affairs were revealed, one of them with an executive allegedly linked to Chinese intelligence services. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has taken over on an interim basis, but the search for a permanent successor is underway. The debate over the replacement took an unexpected turn when President Donald Trump publicly proposed Tim Cook, former Apple chief executive, as a candidate. "NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man for the job: TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replacing a Legend!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. The suggestion shook the markets and broadened the range of names in play, which includes both heavyweight internal figures and high-profile external executives. Tae Kim, author of The Nvidia Way, narrowed the field to two internal candidates in an article published hours after the resignation: Ian Buck, head of the data center business, and Rene Haas, current chief executive of Arm. The prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket gave Buck between a 35% and 40% chance, making him the favorite. Ian Buck, Nvidia's vice president for hyperscale and high-performance computing (Nvidia/Handout via REUTERS) Buck has been with the company for 22 years and is the creator of CUDA, the software that made it possible to use Nvidia's graphics cards for general-purpose computing — the technical foundation on which the AI boom rests. Although he is not part of Huang's innermost circle, he enjoys enormous respect within the company. "Ian is one of the most important figures in Nvidia's history," Kim wrote, noting that he has "the engineering knowledge, the experience, the data center customer relationships and the employee respect needed to lead Nvidia into its next chapter." ARM CEO Rene Haas (REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/Archivo) Haas worked at Nvidia until 2013 and then went on to lead Arm, where he guided the company to its Nasdaq IPO in 2023. Since then, Arm's stock has grown more than 230%, driven by the same wave of artificial intelligence that catapulted Nvidia. "He has proven to be highly successful outside of Nvidia, with a strong command of technology, public-facing CEO skills and highly valued business management experience," Kim noted. "Rene would be a great choice." Nvidia CFO Colette Kress, now the company's top interim executive (Nvidia/Handout via REUTERS) Kress is part of Huang's circle of trust, along with general counsel Tim Teter, chief operating officer Debora Shoquist and field operations chief Nick Parker. She joined Nvidia in 2013 from Cisco, after a prior stint at Microsoft, and has been chief financial officer for more than a decade. Unlike Buck and Haas, she does not have an engineering background, which some analysts consider a limitation for running such a technical company. Her first public test will be Nvidia's quarterly earnings conference, scheduled for next Tuesday. Lisa Su, AMD CEO (REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Archivo) Lisa Su, chief executive of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) — Nvidia's biggest competitor in the AI chip market — and Huang's second cousin, is another external candidate. Her tenure at the helm of AMD spans more than a decade, during which she transformed a company in serious financial difficulties into a top-tier competitor. She received the National Medal of Science from President Trump in October 2026, the highest recognition the US government awards to scientists and engineers. Donald Trump greets former Apple CEO Tim Cook (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Archivo) Cook left Apple in August 2026 after 15 years at the helm, having turned it into a company valued at four trillion dollars. His name was put forward directly by Trump, although analysts consider him a remote possibility. His experience navigating between the worlds of business and politics — a skill the Nvidia post would require in a context of high geopolitical tension — is cited as his main asset for the role. Madison Huang, director of product at NVIDIA and Jensen Huang's daughter (REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/Archivo) Huang's eldest daughter joined Nvidia as an intern six years ago, after completing an MBA at the London Business School, and today holds the position of senior director of product marketing for physical AI. In recent months she had begun accompanying her father on international trips, including his visit to Europe last month. However, Huang himself had tempered expectations in recent remarks to Bloomberg: he said that both Madison and his son Spencer Huang — who also works at the company — "will have to earn it," and suggested he planned to stay in the post for another 20 years. The eruption of the scandal cut that roadmap short.