Elon Musk says it ‘would be an honor’ to hire ousted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — possible projects could include SpaceX’s planned GPU manufacturing, Terafab, or Tesla’s AI accelerators
Elon Musk says it ‘would be an honor’ to hire ousted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — possible projects could include SpaceX’s planned GPU manufacturing, Terafab, or Tesla’s AI accelerators
Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia CEO two weeks after his relationship with a suspected Chinese spy was revealed by intelligence sources and a day after his affair with an Nvidia vice president became publicly known. But hours before this move, when it was just rumored that the Nvidia board was planning to oust him, Elon Musk had already stated his willingness to hire the former Nvidia chief on X. A random X user posted, “Elon please hire Jensen,” to which the billionaire replied, “That would be an honor.”
Despite the scandals that Jensen is currently facing, he still has the engineering know-how, deep knowledge of the industry and its inner workings, plus multiple connections across the world, which would be extremely valuable for any company looking to break into the semiconductor industry.
We still don’t know what Jensen Huang’s plans are, but even though he’s no longer a part of the Nvidia board and its leadership, Jensen and his wife, Lori, still jointly own approximately 800 million Nvidia shares through various trusts and LLCs, while Huang himself personally owns around 70 million Nvidia shares.
Jensen Huang is just the latest in the long list of executives who resigned or were ousted from their leadership position because of a relationship or an affair with a subordinate. This includes former Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher in 2005, HP CEO Mark Hurd in 2010, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in 2018, and former McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook in 2019. Musk himself is known to have had relationships with subordinates from his various companies, and that he has even fathered four children with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at Neuralink who started working at Tesla in 2017, through IVF.
It’s still not confirmed if Musk’s reply is a serious offer for Jensen Huang. But if the former Nvidia chief ever decides to work for Musk on his Terafab project, then Jensen could put his effort and expertise into turning it into a formidable competitor to Nvidia.
Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
