Nvidia Board Weighs Arm CEO Rene Haas as Possible Successor to Jensen Huang

Nvidia’s board has approached Arm CEO Rene Haas about potentially succeeding Jensen Huang, the Financial Times reported. People familiar with the matter said Haas is among several contenders, and there is no assurance he will receive or accept an offer. Haas maintains close ties to Huang and some Nvidia directors, according to the FT. Nvidia’s board said it is still selecting an executive search firm and has not formally engaged any candidate. It called speculation about specific internal or external candidates premature. Huang resigned Thursday after 33 years leading Nvidia, which he co-founded, following reports of extramarital relationships. Those reports included a relationship with a business executive whom U.S. officials suspect has Chinese intelligence ties. Nvidia said it had no reason to believe company secrets had been compromised. Chief financial officer Colette Kress has taken over as interim CEO, and longtime director Harvey Jones has assumed the board chairmanship. Analysts have suggested Nvidia datacenter executive Ian Buck and AMD chief Lisa Su as potential successors, with no confirmed appointments or offers. Wired reported that an internal Nvidia suggestion-box discussion drew more than 1,600 comments, many supporting Huang’s reinstatement. One anonymous employee wrote, "If you believe in the mission, bring back THE boss". Other employees have called for greater transparency about Huang’s departure. Employee support for Huang does not establish that the board has begun discussions about reinstatement. Haas, 64, is based in Silicon Valley and has experience across semiconductor engineering, product development and sales. He earned a degree in electrical engineering from Clarkson University. Haas worked at Tensilica and Scintera Networks before joining Nvidia in 2006. He spent seven years leading Nvidia’s computing products business as vice president and general manager before joining Arm in 2013. He moved from strategic alliances to chief commercial officer in 2015, then took charge of Arm’s intellectual-property products group in 2017 before becoming CEO in February 2022. Haas became CEO as regulatory pressure caused Nvidia’s proposed $40 billion acquisition of Arm to collapse. He led Arm’s return to Nasdaq in September 2023 through an IPO with an initial valuation of about $54.5 billion, one of that year’s largest stock-market debuts. The offering allowed Japan’s SoftBank, Arm’s owner, to sell shares without relinquishing control. Nvidia primarily supplies graphics processors and associated computing systems. Arm licenses computing architecture and chip designs to customers including Apple, Amazon and Qualcomm, collecting licensing fees and royalties. Designs based on Arm technology are increasingly used in cloud servers alongside phones. Arm reported quarterly revenue of $1.44 billion for the period ending September 30, up 27% from a year earlier. Royalties from datacenter chips doubled. Arm said the first commercial deliveries of its new CPU remain scheduled for early 2027. Haas holds a seat on SoftBank’s board. He has also led SoftBank Group International as CEO since April, helping supervise semiconductor and AI interests. Joining Nvidia would require Haas to disentangle those connections, particularly because Nvidia and SoftBank are partners with increasingly overlapping datacenter hardware interests. Nvidia’s next CEO would inherit leadership in AI chips alongside sensitive government and customer relationships while Washington considers stricter export restrictions on China. Nvidia’s earnings announcement is scheduled for November 17, with Kress leading the company while the search for a permanent CEO continues.