Trump Backs Tim Cook to Replace Jensen Huang as Nvidia CEO, Calling It ‘A Legend Replaces a Legend’

President Donald Trump has named his choice to lead Nvidia after the sudden resignation of Jensen Huang, and the name he put forward surprised even seasoned watchers of the technology industry. In a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, November 12, 2026, Trump said former Apple chief executive Tim Cook should take over at the chipmaker, writing that there was only one man for the job. The endorsement came within hours of Nvidia confirming that Huang, who co-founded the company and led it for 33 years, had stepped down with immediate effect. Nvidia has already appointed its chief financial officer, Colette Kress, as interim chief executive while its board searches for a permanent successor, and the company has said it will consider candidates from inside and outside the business. Cook, who led Apple for 15 years before stepping down in September 2026 and becoming its executive chairman, has given no public sign that he wants the job, and there is no indication that Nvidia’s board has approached him. The episode has turned what was already one of the most dramatic leadership crises in corporate America into a three-way story about a fallen founder, a president with strong opinions about who should run the world’s most valuable chip company, and a board under pressure to steady a business worth trillions of dollars. This is the story of how Trump backs Tim Cook Nvidia CEO November 2026.

1. Trump’s Endorsement Lands Hours After Huang’s Exit

President Donald Trump did not wait long to offer his view on who should run Nvidia. Jensen Huang’s resignation was announced on Thursday, November 12, 2026, and by later the same day the president had posted his recommendation on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns. The timing mattered. Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world by market value, its chips power much of the global artificial intelligence boom, and its shares had already fallen sharply in the hours after Huang’s departure was confirmed. Into that uncertainty stepped the president with a single name, delivered in his characteristic style, and within hours it was being reported by news outlets around the world, from Reuters to Axios, Time magazine and The Independent.

The endorsement was striking for several reasons. Trump has a long habit of commenting on corporate leadership, but it is unusual for a sitting president to publicly name a preferred chief executive for a private company in the middle of an active succession search. It was also striking because of who he named. Tim Cook is one of the most famous executives in the world, but he is also a man who only recently left the top job at Apple, and who now holds a senior role there as executive chairman. The suggestion that he might cross to a rival technology giant, and to a company whose business is very different from Apple’s, raised immediate questions about whether the idea was serious, symbolic, or simply the president thinking aloud in public.

What is not in doubt is that the post set the tone for the next phase of the Nvidia story. Before Trump’s intervention, the conversation was about why Huang had resigned and what his departure meant for the company. After it, the conversation also became about Cook, about whether he would ever consider the role, and about what the president’s involvement says about the relationship between Washington and the technology industry at a moment when the government is deeply involved in the politics of artificial intelligence, semiconductors and China.

1.1 The Truth Social Post

The endorsement arrived in a single Truth Social post published on Thursday, November 12, 2026. In it, Trump wrote in full capitals, as he often does on the platform: “NOW THAT NVIDIA CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!” The message was short, emphatic and unambiguous. It praised Huang’s record, named Cook as the only suitable successor, and framed the possible handover as one great business leader replacing another.

The post was reported within hours by the Reuters news agency, whose account was carried by outlets including The Hindu Business Line, and by Axios, Time, MacRumors, The Independent and The Jerusalem Post. The breadth of the coverage reflected the unusual nature of the intervention. A presidential endorsement of a chief executive candidate is rare enough; one delivered on social media, in the middle of a market-moving corporate crisis, and naming a man who had not sought the job, was rarer still.

Trump’s wording also carried a deliberate compliment to both men. By saying Huang had “done a fantastic job”, the president acknowledged the scale of what the Nvidia founder had built. Huang took a small graphics-chip company founded in 1993 and turned it into the dominant supplier of the processors that train and run artificial intelligence systems, a business that at its peak this year was worth more than four trillion dollars. The praise sat awkwardly alongside the circumstances of Huang’s departure, which followed reports of personal misconduct and national security concerns, but it was consistent with Trump’s public comments about Huang in the days around the resignation. In an interview with the Salem News Channel on November 12, the president called the scandal surrounding Huang “a terrible thing”, and he noted that he had awarded Huang the National Medal of Science, along with SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk and other technology leaders, in October 2026.

1.2 “A Legend Replaces a Legend”

The phrase “A Legend replaces a Legend” was the part of the post that travelled furthest. It was quoted in headlines across the world, and it captured the way Trump wanted the story to be understood: not as a company in crisis, but as a passing of the torch between two of the most successful business leaders of their generation. Cook led Apple for 15 years, from 2011 to 2026, and under his leadership the iPhone maker became the first company to reach a market value of three trillion dollars. Huang led Nvidia for 33 years and built it into the central supplier of the artificial intelligence age. To describe either man as a legend is not controversial. To suggest that one should directly replace the other is a different matter.

The slogan also obscured some awkward facts. Cook is 66 years old and has only just stepped back from the most demanding job in the technology industry. He spent 15 years as Apple’s chief executive, and before that he ran the company’s operations, building the supply chain that made the iPhone possible at enormous scale. His move to executive chairman in September 2026 was presented as a planned transition, with John Ternus taking over as Apple’s chief executive. There has been no suggestion from Cook, from Apple, or from Nvidia that he is looking for a new full-time role, let alone that he has discussed one with Nvidia’s board.

The phrase also raised a question about what kind of leader Nvidia needs next. Huang was a founder, an engineer by training, and a man whose personal style and technical judgement were woven into the company’s identity. He was famous for his black leather jacket, his marathon keynote speeches, and his willingness to bet the company on new markets, first gaming, then data centres, then artificial intelligence. Cook is a very different kind of executive: an operations specialist, a supply chain expert, and a manager known for calm, methodical execution rather than showmanship. Whether the board wants a steady operator or another visionary founder-type is one of the central questions of the search, and Trump’s slogan does not answer it.

2. Who Tim Cook Is and Why Trump Picked Him

Tim Cook is one of the best-known business leaders in the world, and his career is closely tied to the rise of Apple from a struggling computer maker to the most valuable consumer technology company on the planet. Born in Alabama in 1960, Cook studied industrial engineering at Auburn University and business at Duke University before joining Apple in 1998, when the company was still recovering from years of losses. He was hired by Steve Jobs to fix Apple’s manufacturing and supply chain, and he did so with a rigour that became legendary inside the industry, cutting inventory, closing warehouses, and building relationships with suppliers across Asia that allowed Apple to produce the iPhone at a scale no rival could match.

When Jobs died in October 2011, Cook succeeded him as chief executive. The appointment was greeted with scepticism by some investors and commentators, who doubted whether an operations man could replace a visionary founder. Over the next 15 years, Cook answered that question with results. Apple’s revenue grew from about 108 billion dollars in the year he took over to more than 400 billion dollars, and its market value rose from around 350 billion dollars to more than three trillion dollars at its peak. He oversaw the launch of the Apple Watch, AirPods and Apple Vision Pro, expanded the company’s services business into one of its largest sources of profit, and navigated trade tensions with China, antitrust battles in Europe and the United States, and the disruption of the pandemic.

Cook is also known for his personal style. He is private, disciplined and famously early-rising, and he has spoken publicly about his values, including on privacy, the environment and civil rights. He became the first openly gay chief executive of a Fortune 500 company in 2014, when he wrote about his sexuality in an essay for Bloomberg Businessweek. Those qualities made him a respected figure in Washington as well as in Silicon Valley, and Trump has praised him on several occasions, including for Apple’s investments in American manufacturing.

2.1 Fifteen Years at the Top of Apple

Cook’s 15 years as Apple’s chief executive were among the most successful in the history of American business. When he took over in August 2011, Apple was already the most valuable company in the world, but many observers believed its best days were behind it. The iPhone was four years old, and Jobs, the man who had reinvented the company, was gone. Cook’s achievement was to prove that Apple could keep growing without its founder, and to do so by building a machine for innovation and execution that was less dependent on any single person.

The numbers tell part of the story. In the 2011 financial year, Apple’s revenue was about 108 billion dollars. By the 2025 financial year, it had risen to about 416 billion dollars. The company’s market value, which stood at roughly 350 billion dollars when Cook took over, passed one trillion dollars in 2018, two trillion in 2020, and three trillion in 2022. Those milestones made Apple the first American company to reach each of those thresholds, and they made Cook one of the most richly rewarded executives in the world, with compensation packages tied to the company’s share performance.

But the story was not only about size. Cook expanded Apple into new product categories, including wearables and services, and he turned the company’s services division, which includes the App Store, iCloud, Apple Music and Apple TV, into a business that generated more than 100 billion dollars a year. He also managed Apple’s relationship with China, where the company manufactures most of its products and sells a large share of them, through years of rising tension between Washington and Beijing. And he did all of this while maintaining a reputation for calm, steady management, a contrast to the more volatile styles of some of his peers.

2.2 Cook’s New Role as Apple’s Executive Chairman

Cook stepped down as Apple’s chief executive on September 1, 2026, as part of what the company described as a planned transition. John Ternus, who had led Apple’s hardware engineering, took over as chief executive, and Cook became the company’s executive chairman. The move was announced with the kind of careful choreography that Apple is known for, and it was presented as a natural moment for a changing of the guard after 15 years.

The role of executive chairman is not the same as being retired. Cook remains closely involved with Apple’s board and its strategy, and he continues to be one of the most influential figures in the technology industry. But the day-to-day running of the company now belongs to Ternus, and Cook’s public profile has become lower since the transition. He has made few public appearances in the role, and he has given no indication that he is seeking another full-time executive position.

That is why Trump’s suggestion landed with a sense of unreality in some quarters. For Cook to become Nvidia’s chief executive, he would have to leave Apple entirely, or at least step away from the chairmanship of a company he has served for 28 years, and take on the leadership of a direct competitor in the semiconductor industry. He would also have to do so at the age of 66, after 15 years in one of the most demanding jobs in the world, and in the middle of a corporate crisis involving allegations of espionage and a congressional investigation. None of the reporting since Trump’s post has suggested that Cook is considering it. As MacRumors put it in its report on November 12, there is no indication that Cook actually wants to be Nvidia’s chief executive.

3. Jensen Huang’s Sudden Resignation

To understand why Trump’s endorsement matters, it is necessary to understand what happened at Nvidia in the days before it. Jensen Huang’s resignation was one of the most shocking corporate departures of the year, not only because of who he was, but because of how quickly it happened and how little explanation the company gave. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, and he had led the company for its entire life as a public business. He was its president, its chief executive and a member of its board, and he was also its fourth-largest individual investor. On Thursday, November 12, 2026, Nvidia announced that he had resigned from all three roles with immediate effect.

The company’s announcement was brief. It said the board had accepted Huang’s resignation, which had been tendered on November 11, according to a regulatory filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, known as a Form 8-K. The filing, signed on November 12 by Colette Kress, gave no reason for the departure. There was no quote from Huang, no thank-you message from the board, and no mention of a new role or a separation agreement. The absence of explanation was itself a statement: this was not a planned retirement, and it was not a departure on good terms dressed up as one.

The silence from the company stood in sharp contrast to the noise outside it. In the days before the resignation, reports had emerged that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence operation, and that he had admitted to extramarital affairs, including one with a woman whom United States authorities suspect of working for China. The New York Times reported that Trump himself had been briefed on the suspected operation and had chosen not to act, though those claims remain allegations. A proposed shareholder class action, filed on November 9 in a federal court in California, alleged that Nvidia and Huang had hidden his ties to the woman. Huang has been summoned to testify before Congress, and Democrats in Congress have opened an investigation into Nvidia’s sales in China and its dealings with the Trump administration. Against that background, the resignation looked less like a choice and more like an ending imposed by events.

3.1 Thirty-Three Years at the Helm

Huang’s 33 years at Nvidia were among the longest and most successful tenures of any chief executive in the history of the technology industry. He founded the company in 1993, when he was 30 years old, with the aim of building graphics chips for video games. The early years were difficult. Nvidia’s first products failed, and the company came close to running out of money. But Huang bet on a new idea: that the processors designed to render images for games could also be used for general computing, and that they would eventually become the engines of artificial intelligence.

That bet took more than a decade to pay off, and it required Huang to risk the company on several occasions. In the 2000s, Nvidia invested heavily in a programming platform called CUDA, which allowed developers to use its graphics chips for tasks far beyond gaming. Many analysts thought the investment was a waste of money. In the 2010s, it turned out to be the foundation of the company’s dominance in artificial intelligence, because the same chips that rendered game graphics were also ideal for the parallel calculations that train machine-learning models. By the time the artificial intelligence boom began in earnest in 2022 and 2023, Nvidia was the only company that could supply the necessary hardware at scale.

The financial results were extraordinary. Nvidia’s data centre business, built on its H100 and Blackwell chips, grew from a niche to the largest part of the company, and its revenue rose from about 27 billion dollars in the financial year ending January 2023 to more than 148 billion dollars two years later. Its market value, which had been below 500 billion dollars at the start of 2023, passed one trillion, then two trillion, then three trillion, and at its peak in 2026 it exceeded four trillion dollars, making it the most valuable company in the world. Huang became a celebrity in the technology world, known for his black leather jacket, his long keynote speeches, and his habit of signing the graphics cards of fans at conferences. He was, in the words of many who worked with him, inseparable from the company he had built.

3.2 The Allegations That Forced the Exit

The events that ended Huang’s career began to surface publicly in early November 2026. On November 8, Nvidia announced an independent investigation into reports that Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. The announcement was unusual: companies rarely confirm that their chief executive is the subject of an intelligence investigation, and the statement gave no detail about what had been found. What followed was a rapid unravelling. Reports emerged of extramarital affairs, including one with a businesswoman identified in some reports as Alice Huang, an executive at a company called Megaspeed, whom United States intelligence agencies suspect of working for China. The reports said the relationship raised concerns that Huang had been compromised, and that the matter had been brought to the attention of senior figures in government.

It is important to be clear about what is known and what is not. The existence of the affairs has been reported by multiple outlets, and the Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia’s board was preparing to remove Huang before he resigned. But the underlying espionage claims remain allegations, and no findings from the independent investigation have been released. Huang has not been charged with any crime, and there has been no public evidence that any Nvidia technology or information was compromised. The New York Times reported that Trump was briefed on the suspected honeypot operation and chose not to act, but that report, too, rests on unnamed sources and has not been confirmed by the White House.

What is known is that the pressure on Huang became untenable within days. Democrats in Congress opened an investigation into Nvidia’s sales in China, the second congressional inquiry into the company since the story broke, and Huang was summoned to testify before Congress. A shareholder class action was filed on November 9, alleging that the company and its chief executive had hidden material information from investors. And the board, which had accepted Huang’s resignation on November 11, moved quickly to install an interim leader and begin the search for a permanent replacement. Whatever the full truth of the allegations, the board’s decision to accept a resignation with no farewell message and no explanation spoke volumes about how the company viewed the situation.

4. Colette Kress and the Interim Leadership

While the world debated who should lead Nvidia next, the company had already made its first decision. On the same day that Huang’s resignation was announced, Nvidia said that Colette Kress, its executive vice president and chief financial officer, would become interim chief executive. Kress, who is 59 years old, has been Nvidia’s chief financial officer since 2013, and she is one of the longest-serving members of its senior leadership team. She will keep her role as chief financial officer while she leads the company, a dual responsibility that reflects the urgency of the moment.

Kress is a respected figure in the technology industry and on Wall Street. She joined Nvidia after senior finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft, and she was at the centre of the company’s financial transformation during the artificial intelligence boom, managing the capital allocation, the share buybacks and the investor relations that accompanied its rise to a market value of more than four trillion dollars. She knows the company’s customers, its suppliers and its investors, and she has worked closely with Huang for more than a decade. Those qualities made her the natural choice to steady the company while the board searches for a permanent successor.

The appointment also sent a message. By choosing an insider, and a woman who had been Huang’s closest financial lieutenant, the board signalled continuity rather than rupture. The company did not bring in an outsider to clean house, and it did not appoint a caretaker with no knowledge of the business. It chose the person who knew the numbers better than anyone, and who could keep the company running while the search for a permanent chief executive went on. That choice matters because Nvidia’s next few months will be demanding, with quarterly results due on November 17 and a series of product launches and customer commitments to manage.

4.1 The CFO Who Stepped In

Colette Kress has been at Nvidia for 13 years, and in that time she has become one of the most powerful women in the semiconductor industry. She joined the company in 2013, after 13 years at Cisco, where she rose to senior vice president and chief financial officer of the company’s business technology and operations finance division, and after earlier roles at Microsoft. At Nvidia, she took charge of the company’s finances at a moment when it was still primarily a gaming company, and she stayed through its transformation into the dominant supplier of artificial intelligence hardware.

Her work was central to the way Nvidia managed its growth. As the company’s revenue surged, Kress oversaw the allocation of tens of billions of dollars in capital, including large share buyback programmes and investments in new manufacturing capacity. She was also the public face of the company’s financial performance, presenting its quarterly results to investors and analysts, and explaining its strategy for the data centre market that became its largest business. Analysts who cover the company describe her as precise, cautious and deeply knowledgeable about the details of its operations, qualities that are likely to be valuable in the weeks ahead.

Kress also has a personal connection to the crisis that brought her to the top job. It was she who signed the regulatory filing that disclosed Huang’s resignation, and she is the person who will have to answer investors’ questions about the succession when Nvidia reports its quarterly results on November 17. The board’s decision to give her both the chief executive and chief financial officer roles is unusual, and it reflects the speed with which events moved. It is a sign that the board trusts her, and that it wanted a leader who could take charge immediately, without a handover period.

4.2 How Long the Interim Period Could Last

One of the first questions after Kress’s appointment was how long she would hold the interim role. The board has not given a deadline for choosing a permanent chief executive, and analysts who follow the company have offered different estimates. Dan Ives, a well-known technology analyst, has said he expects the interim period to last about a year, a view that reflects the difficulty of finding a leader for a company of Nvidia’s size and complexity. Others have suggested the search could move more quickly, particularly if the board already has candidates in mind, but nobody has suggested that a permanent appointment is imminent.

The length of the interim period matters for several reasons. First, it will determine how much authority Kress has to make long-term decisions. Interim chief executives are often reluctant to take big strategic risks, because they know they may not be in the job when the consequences arrive. Second, it will affect the company’s ability to recruit and retain senior talent. Executives who might have joined Nvidia to work with Huang may now wait to see who his permanent successor is, and rivals may try to hire away key staff while the leadership is uncertain. Third, it will shape the way investors think about the company. A long interim period can be read as a sign that the board is being careful, or as a sign that it cannot find the right person.

For now, the board has said only that it will consider candidates from inside and outside the company. That is the standard formula for a chief executive search, and it leaves open every possibility, from promoting a senior Nvidia executive to hiring an outsider from another technology company. What it does not do is give any clue about how long the process will take, or about whether the board has a preferred candidate in mind. The market, for its part, will be watching the November 17 earnings report for any sign of how Kress intends to lead the company in the meantime.

5. The Board’s Search for a Permanent Chief

The search for Nvidia’s next permanent chief executive is one of the most important hiring decisions in the history of the technology industry. The person who takes the job will lead a company with a market value in the trillions of dollars, with customers that include the largest technology companies in the world, and with a central role in the global race for artificial intelligence. The job requires a rare combination of skills: an understanding of semiconductor engineering, a grasp of the artificial intelligence market, experience of managing a business at enormous scale, and the ability to navigate the politics of Washington and Beijing, where export controls and national security concerns now shape the company’s business.

The board has given itself a difficult task. It must find someone who can follow a founder who led the company for 33 years and who was personally identified with its success. It must do so while the company is under investigation by Congress, while its former chief executive is facing questions about espionage, and while its share price is volatile. And it must do so in public, with every rumour and report about candidates immediately picked up by the media and reflected in the share price. The board’s announcement that it will consider both internal and external candidates is the only formal statement it has made about the process, and it is deliberately broad.

There is also the question of what kind of leader the board wants. Huang was a founder, an engineer, and a risk-taker who bet the company on new markets. Some observers believe the board will want another visionary of the same type, someone who can imagine the next big shift in computing. Others believe it will want a steady operator, someone who can manage the business Huang built and keep its customers and investors confident. The choice between those two types will shape the company’s future, and it is a choice the board will have to make in the coming months.

5.1 Internal and External Candidates

Nvidia’s board has confirmed that its search will consider both internal and external candidates, a phrase that covers a wide range of possibilities. Internal candidates would include senior executives who already work at the company and who understand its technology, its customers and its culture. They would have the advantage of continuity, and they would be able to take over without a long learning period. But they would also carry a risk: anyone who was close to Huang may be seen as part of the old regime, and the board may want a clean break from the leadership that presided over the scandal.

External candidates would include chief executives and senior leaders from other technology companies, particularly those with experience in semiconductors, artificial intelligence or large-scale manufacturing. They would bring fresh perspective and a degree of independence from the events that led to Huang’s resignation. But they would also face a steep learning curve, and they would have to win the trust of a workforce that was deeply loyal to its founder. The history of technology companies suggests that external appointments at this level are rare and risky, but they are not unknown, and the board has kept the option open.

The search will be conducted by the board’s nominating committee, with the help of an executive search firm, according to the usual practice for companies of Nvidia’s size. The process is likely to take months, and it will involve interviews with a shortlist of candidates, reference checks, and negotiations over pay and terms. Nvidia’s chief executive is one of the best-paid jobs in the world, and the package offered to the successful candidate will reflect that. But money is not the only consideration. The person who takes the job will also have to be willing to lead a company under intense public scrutiny, and to do so in the shadow of a founder who built it from nothing.

5.2 The Names in the Frame

Even before the board has said anything about individual candidates, names have begun to circulate. The most prominent is Tim Cook, because of Trump’s endorsement, but he is far from the only one. Semafor, the news outlet, reported on Wednesday, November 11, that Johny Srouji, Apple’s longtime chief of chipmaking, is among the people Nvidia is considering. Srouji is a respected figure in the semiconductor industry, having led Apple’s move to design its own chips for the iPhone, iPad and Mac, and his name has been mentioned in connection with chief executive roles before.

Another name comes from Tae Kim, the author of a book about Nvidia called The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant. Kim identified two candidates he considers particularly suitable for the permanent position: Rene Haas, the chief executive of Arm Holdings, the British chip designer whose technology is used in almost every smartphone in the world, and Ian Buck, a senior Nvidia executive who leads the company’s accelerated computing business. Haas has run Arm since 2022 and has experience of leading a public semiconductor company. Buck has been at Nvidia for many years and is one of the company’s most senior technical leaders, having worked closely with Huang on the strategy for artificial intelligence computing.

It is important to be clear about the status of these names. Srouji, Haas and Buck have been mentioned in reporting and commentary, but none of them has been confirmed as a candidate by Nvidia’s board, and none of them has said publicly that they want the job. The board has not commented on any individual, and the search is at an early stage. The names matter because they show the kind of person the market thinks could lead Nvidia: a chip designer, a semiconductor chief executive, or a senior insider. What they do not show is who the board will choose, or when it will choose them.

6. What the Markets Did

The financial markets reacted to Huang’s resignation, and then to Trump’s endorsement, with the kind of volatility that reflects both the importance of Nvidia and the uncertainty surrounding its future. Nvidia is not just another large company. Its shares are among the most widely held in the world, its market value is larger than the economy of most countries, and its performance has a direct effect on the major stock market indices in the United States. When its chief executive resigned, the reaction was immediate, and it was severe.

The scale of the fall was striking. Nvidia’s shares closed on Tuesday, November 11, at 173.73 dollars. After the resignation was reported, they fell in after-hours trading to about 159 dollars, and when the market opened on Wednesday, November 12, they began trading at about 151 dollars. At their lowest point during the day, they reached 148.80 dollars, a 52-week low and about 35 percent below the all-time closing high of 239.24 dollars reached on October 6. At that low, the company had lost about 601 billion dollars in market value in a single session, and nearly 750 billion dollars since the scandal first broke. The shares recovered some of their losses during the day, closing on November 12 at 166.19 dollars, down 4.34 percent, but the damage was done. Trading volume reached 734.3 million shares, about 423 percent above the three-month average, a sign of how many investors were rushing to buy or sell.

The reaction to Trump’s endorsement was more muted, at least in the short term. The president’s post did not settle the question of who would lead the company, and it did not change the fundamental uncertainty about Nvidia’s future. Some investors saw the endorsement as a positive sign, because it suggested that the president was engaged with the company’s future and that he favoured a leader with a strong record. Others saw it as a distraction, or as a sign that the succession process could become politicised. The shares fell by as much as 14.3 percent on Thursday before recovering much of that loss, according to reports, a pattern that reflected the conflicting pressures on the stock.

6.1 Nvidia Shares After the News

The fall in Nvidia’s share price was the most visible consequence of Huang’s resignation, and it mattered for reasons that went beyond the company’s own investors. Nvidia’s shares are held by pension funds, by index funds that track the major stock markets, and by millions of individual investors who bought them during the artificial intelligence boom. A fall of the size seen on November 12 reduced the value of those holdings by hundreds of billions of dollars, and it contributed to a wider fall in technology shares on the day.

The company’s market value tells the story. Just weeks before the resignation, Nvidia was worth more than four trillion dollars, making it the most valuable company in the world. By the low point on November 12, it had lost nearly 750 billion dollars of that value since the scandal broke, a sum larger than the entire market value of most of the companies in the S and P 500 index. The shares also briefly fell below Microsoft in market value, a symbolic moment for a company that had overtaken its rival only recently. Analysts were quick to cut their expectations. Bernstein, the research firm, cut its price target for Nvidia’s shares from 400 dollars to 200 dollars, and Dan Ives, another well-known analyst, cut his target from 300 dollars to 225 dollars.

The volatility also reflected the uncertainty about the company’s business. Nvidia’s chips are in high demand, and its order book is full, but investors worried that the leadership crisis could affect its relationships with customers, its ability to execute its product plans, and its standing with the United States government, which controls the export of its most advanced chips to China. Those worries were not resolved by the appointment of an interim chief executive, or by the president’s endorsement of a successor. They will only be resolved when the board names a permanent leader and the company shows that it can operate normally without its founder.

6.2 Rivals and the Wider Chip Sector

The crisis at Nvidia did not happen in isolation, and its effects were felt across the semiconductor industry. On the day Huang resigned, shares in some of Nvidia’s rivals rose, as investors bet that the company’s troubles could benefit its competitors. Broadcom, which designs chips for artificial intelligence and networking, rose by about five percent. Advanced Micro Devices, known as AMD, which competes with Nvidia in graphics and data centre chips, rose by between two and five percent. Other chipmakers, including Micron, Marvell and Intel, fell, a sign that the market was uncertain about whether the crisis would help or hurt the wider industry.

The mixed reaction reflected the complexity of the situation. On one hand, Nvidia’s troubles could create opportunities for its rivals, particularly in the market for artificial intelligence chips, where customers have been looking for alternatives to a single dominant supplier. On the other hand, a crisis at the industry’s largest company could damage confidence in the entire sector, particularly if it led to delays in product launches or to a slowdown in spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. The fact that some rivals rose and others fell suggested that investors had not yet decided which of those effects would dominate.

There was also a wider question about the artificial intelligence boom itself. Nvidia’s rise had been the most visible symbol of that boom, and its fall raised questions about whether the market’s enthusiasm for artificial intelligence had gone too far. Some commentators argued that the company’s share price had been inflated by speculation, and that the scandal had simply exposed a correction that was already overdue. Others argued that the underlying demand for artificial intelligence hardware remained strong, and that Nvidia’s business would recover once the leadership question was settled. The truth is likely to be somewhere between those two views, but it will not be clear until the company reports its results on November 17 and gives investors a sense of how it is performing.

7. What Trump’s Backing Can and Cannot Do

President Trump’s endorsement of Tim Cook was a striking moment, but it is important to understand its limits. The president of the United States does not appoint the chief executive of Nvidia, or of any other private company. That decision belongs to the company’s board of directors, which is elected by its shareholders and which has a legal duty to act in their interests. Trump’s opinion, however forcefully expressed, is just that: an opinion. It carries political weight, and it can influence the public conversation, but it does not settle the search, and it does not oblige the board to do anything.

That point was made clearly in the reporting that followed the endorsement. The Washington Post reported that there was no indication Nvidia was considering Cook, or that Trump had a role in deciding the company’s next leader. Nvidia itself has said only that its board will consider internal and external candidates, and it has not commented on the president’s suggestion. Cook has not responded to the endorsement, and there has been no report that he has discussed the role with Nvidia or with the president. The endorsement, in other words, is a statement of preference, not a decision, and it may have no effect at all on the outcome of the search.

That does not mean it is unimportant. A presidential endorsement can change the way a story is covered, and it can put pressure on the people involved, even if it does not change the formal process. It can also affect the share price, at least in the short term, by signalling the president’s attitude towards a company. And it can reveal something about the relationship between the White House and the technology industry, at a time when the government is deeply involved in decisions about artificial intelligence, semiconductors and trade with China. But it is not a hiring decision, and it should not be reported as one.

7.1 The President Has No Say in the Appointment

The appointment of a chief executive is one of the most important decisions a company’s board can make, and it is governed by rules that have nothing to do with politics. Nvidia’s board is made up of directors elected by shareholders, and it has a nominating committee that is responsible for finding and vetting candidates. The committee works with executive search firms, interviews candidates, checks their references, and negotiates the terms of their employment. The final decision is made by the full board, and it is announced to shareholders through a regulatory filing. The president of the United States plays no part in that process.

That is not to say that the president has no influence over Nvidia’s business. The United States government controls the export of Nvidia’s most advanced chips to China, and it has used that power to restrict the company’s sales in the world’s second-largest economy. The government also has a say in the regulation of artificial intelligence, in the awarding of contracts for supercomputing, and in the broader industrial policy that affects the semiconductor industry. Trump has shown a willingness to use that influence, and his administration has been closely involved in the politics of the chip industry. But influence over policy is not the same as influence over personnel, and there is no mechanism by which the president can impose a chief executive on a private company.

The distinction matters because it affects how the story should be understood. Trump’s endorsement is a political intervention in a corporate process, and it should be reported as such. It is not a sign that Cook will become Nvidia’s chief executive, and it is not a sign that the board is considering him. It is a sign that the president has a view about who should lead one of the most important companies in the world, and that he is willing to express that view in public. Whether the board shares that view is a different question, and it is one that only the board can answer.

7.2 Why Trump Weighed In Anyway

If the president cannot appoint Nvidia’s chief executive, why did he intervene? There are several possible reasons, and they say something about the way Trump approaches the technology industry and about the politics of the moment. The first is personal. Trump has a long relationship with both Huang and Cook, and he has praised both men on numerous occasions. He awarded Huang the National Medal of Science in October 2026, and he has praised Cook for Apple’s investments in American manufacturing. To name Cook as Huang’s successor was, in that sense, a natural extension of his admiration for both men, and a way of associating himself with a story about great American business leaders.

The second reason is political. Nvidia is not just a company; it is a symbol of American technological leadership, and its crisis is a matter of national concern. The company’s chips are used by the United States military, by its intelligence agencies, and by the companies that are building the artificial intelligence systems of the future. A leadership crisis at Nvidia is therefore a matter of public interest, and a president who presents himself as a champion of American business may feel that he has a right, or even a duty, to comment on it. By naming Cook, Trump positioned himself as a participant in the story, rather than a bystander, and he gave his supporters a clear, simple narrative about what should happen next.

The third reason is about the relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley. Trump’s second term has been marked by a close, and sometimes tense, relationship with the technology industry. He has courted its leaders, invited them to the White House, and praised their achievements, while also criticising them when they have disagreed with him. His endorsement of Cook fits that pattern. It was a public gesture towards a man he respects, and it was also a reminder that the president is watching the industry closely, and that he has views about how it should be run. Whether those views will influence the board’s decision remains to be seen, but the intervention itself was a sign of how closely the White House is following the crisis at Nvidia.

8. What Happens Next

The story of Nvidia’s leadership crisis is far from over, and the coming days and weeks will determine how it ends. The most immediate test comes on November 17, when Nvidia reports its quarterly financial results. That report will be watched more closely than any in the company’s history, not only for the numbers it contains, but for what it says about the company’s leadership and its strategy. Colette Kress, as interim chief executive, will present the results, and she will face questions from analysts about the succession, about the investigation into Huang, and about the company’s prospects without its founder. Her answers will matter, because they will be the first public statement from the company’s new leadership about how it intends to move forward.

Beyond the earnings report, the board’s search for a permanent chief executive will continue. The process is likely to take months, and it will be conducted largely in private, with the names of candidates emerging only through leaks and speculation. The board will have to weigh the claims of internal and external candidates, of visionaries and operators, and of people who were close to Huang and people who were not. It will also have to consider the views of its largest shareholders, its customers, and the United States government, all of whom have a stake in the outcome. The decision, when it comes, will be one of the most consequential in the history of the technology industry.

There is also the question of Huang himself. He has resigned, but he has not disappeared. He remains a major shareholder in the company he founded, and he is expected to testify before Congress about the allegations that led to his departure. What he says, and what the independent investigation finds, could shape the way his resignation is understood, and it could affect the company’s reputation for years to come. For now, the facts are incomplete, and the story is still unfolding. The coming days will provide the answers.

8.1 The November 17 Earnings Test

Nvidia is scheduled to report its financial results for the third quarter of its 2027 financial year on November 17, 2026, with the numbers released after the market closes at 1:20 p.m. Pacific Time and a conference call with analysts at 2 p.m. Pacific Time. The report was already one of the most anticipated events in the corporate calendar before Huang resigned, because it would show whether the company’s extraordinary growth was continuing. Now it has taken on a different significance, as the first public test of the company under its new interim leadership.

Analysts expect the company to report earnings of 2.49 dollars per share for the quarter ending in October 2026, up from 1.24 dollars a year earlier, an increase of about 101 percent. That forecast reflects the continued strength of demand for Nvidia’s data centre chips, which power the artificial intelligence systems being built by the world’s largest technology companies. In the company’s second financial quarter, reported on August 26, revenue reached 96.2 billion dollars, up 18 percent from the previous quarter and 106 percent from a year earlier. If the third-quarter results are in line with those expectations, they will show that the company’s business remains strong, even as its leadership is in turmoil.

But the numbers will only be part of the story. Investors and analysts will also be listening for what Kress says about the succession, about the investigation into Huang, and about the company’s strategy for the coming year. They will want to know whether the board has a timetable for appointing a permanent chief executive, whether the company has lost any customers or orders as a result of the crisis, and whether the government has imposed any new restrictions on its business. The answers to those questions will not be in the financial statements, but they will be at least as important as the numbers in determining how the market reacts.

8.2 The Questions That Remain

For all that is known about the crisis at Nvidia, much remains unanswered, and it is important to be honest about what is not yet clear. The first and most important question is why Huang resigned. The company has given no reason, and the reports that have emerged are based on unnamed sources and unconfirmed allegations. The independent investigation announced on November 8 has not published any findings, and it is not clear when, or whether, it will do so. Until the investigation’s conclusions are known, the full story of Huang’s departure cannot be told.

The second question is whether Tim Cook has any interest in the job. Trump has named him as his preferred candidate, but Cook has not responded, and there is no evidence that he has discussed the role with Nvidia or with anyone else. He is 66 years old, he has just left the most demanding job in the technology industry, and he remains the executive chairman of Apple. For him to take over at Nvidia would require a dramatic change of direction, and there is no sign that he is considering one. The Washington Post has reported that there is no indication Nvidia is considering Cook, and that report has not been contradicted.

The third question is who the board will actually choose. The names mentioned so far, including Johny Srouji, Rene Haas and Ian Buck, are the product of reporting and speculation, not of any announcement by the board. The search is at an early stage, and the board has not given a deadline. It could choose an insider, an outsider, a visionary or an operator, and each choice would send a different signal about the company’s future. The fourth question is what Huang will say when he testifies before Congress, and what the congressional investigation into Nvidia’s business in China will find. And the fifth question is whether the company’s business can continue to grow while its leadership is uncertain, a question that will begin to be answered on November 17. The coming days will provide the answers.

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