Nvidia's board has approached Arm chief executive Rene Haas about succeeding Jensen Huang, the Financial Times reported on Friday, putting a former Nvidia executive in contention for one of the biggest jobs in technology. Haas is one of several candidates under consideration, and there is no guarantee he will be offered the job, or that he would accept it.
The approach comes a day after Huang stepped down on Thursday, ending 33 years leading the company he co-founded. His resignation followed a board investigation into his conduct, and Reuters reported that the investigation uncovered extramarital relationships, including one with a business executive suspected by U.S. officials of having Chinese intelligence ties.
The speed of the fall was startling. Huang had led Nvidia since co-founding it in 1993, building it from a graphics-chip startup into the company at the center of the artificial intelligence boom — the supplier of the chips that train nearly every major AI system, and one of the most valuable companies in the world. His departure, effective immediately, left the board with no successor in place and a company to steady in public.
A Familiar Face — And A Complicated One
Haas, 64, is no stranger to Nvidia. He spent about seven years at the company earlier in his career, running its computing products business from 2006 to 2013, before leaving to join Arm. He has led Arm since February 2022, steering the chip designer through its Nasdaq listing in 2023 and its move into making AI data-center chips, and since April 2026 he has also run SoftBank Group International. Arm is a SoftBank subsidiary, and its processor designs sit inside nearly every smartphone on earth — and inside Nvidia's own products.
That history cuts both ways. Haas knows Nvidia's business, its customers and its culture from the inside, and he maintains strong ties to Huang and to some Nvidia directors, according to the Financial Times. But he would be leaving the top job at one of the industry's most important companies to take on a rescue mission at another, days after its founder walked out.
The Board Says It Has Not Hired Anyone
Nvidia's board moved quickly to cool the speculation. In a statement, it said it was still in the process of selecting an executive search firm and had not formally engaged any potential candidates. 'Any speculation regarding individual candidates, whether internal or external, is premature,' the board said. Reuters said it could not independently verify the Financial Times report, and Arm declined to comment.
The caution is understandable. Hiring a chief executive is the most consequential decision a board makes, and doing it in the middle of a scandal, with the share price sliding and employees openly calling for the old boss back, makes it harder still. A formal search run by an outside firm gives the board time and cover; informal soundings let it move faster than the formal process allows. The Haas approach suggests it is trying to do both at once.
The gap between the report and the board's statement is the story of the search so far: the board is sounding out names informally while insisting, on the record, that no formal process has begun. That leaves Haas in an unusual position — approached, but not engaged; a leading candidate, but not a candidate at all, officially.
The Other Names In The Frame
Haas is not the only name being discussed. Analysts have floated Ian Buck, the Nvidia executive who oversees its hyperscale and high-performance computing business and led development of CUDA, the software platform that underpins the company's AI dominance. AMD chief executive Lisa Su has also been mentioned, though neither name has been confirmed as an appointment or an offer. Inside Nvidia, the mood is more complicated still: an internal suggestion-box post calling for Huang's reinstatement has drawn more than 1,600 comments, many of them supportive, according to Wired.
Whoever takes the job inherits a company that is, by any measure, in a strange position: dominant in the market that matters most, and leaderless at the moment that dominance is under the most scrutiny. Nvidia's chips power the AI systems its biggest customers are racing to build, and those customers — the cloud giants and AI labs — will be watching the succession as closely as any investor.
Haas's own position adds another wrinkle. Arm licenses its designs rather than selling chips, and its technology is used by Nvidia's rivals as well as by Nvidia itself. A move across that line would raise questions for Arm's customers — and for SoftBank, which owns Arm and would have to find a successor of its own.
What The Market Did
Arm's shares fell nearly 10% at one point on Friday after the report, before recovering some of the loss to close at $190.53, down 4.63%. Nvidia's own shares fell about 2% on Friday, capping a weekly loss of roughly 10%, according to market reports.
For now, chief financial officer Colette Kress is running the company as interim chief executive, and longtime director Harvey Jones, a director since Nvidia's founding in 1993, has become board chair. Kress, 59, takes the helm at a delicate moment: Nvidia reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday, November 17, with the succession search still open and investors watching for any sign of how the board plans to steady the company.
The next fixed date in the story is Tuesday's earnings report, when Kress will face investors for the first time as interim chief executive. Until then, the search stays where it is: a board sounding out names, a former executive at the top of the list, and a company waiting to learn who will lead it next.
