Nvidia Executives Sign Letter Calling for ‘Jensen Huang’s Return’? ... An OpenAI Letter ‘Lookalike’

[Financial News] A document claiming that senior Nvidia executives are threatening to resign en masse and demanding the return of former CEO Jensen Huang has spread on social media. It has drawn attention amid claims that the document may be fake, copied from a protest letter OpenAI employees sent to the board when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was dismissed in 2023.
A document bearing the names of Nvidia employees and claiming that the board undermined the company’s accomplishments and mission in the process of pushing out former CEO Huang was posted on X on the 13th (local time). It called for the entire board to step down, new independent directors to be appointed, and Huang to return.
It also said that if these demands were not met, the signatories would leave the company and join former CEO Jensen Huang in the Terafab project at SpaceX, led by Elon Musk.
The document listed as signatories Ian Buck, a vice president mentioned as a potential next CEO; chief scientist Bill Dally; Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Michael Kagan; and co-founder Chris Malachowsky.
However, it has not been confirmed whether they actually signed it.
A Community Note was added to the X post, saying that no reports had confirmed the existence of such a letter signed by multiple people.
A comparison with the letter OpenAI employees wrote previously shows that only the company and people’s names, as well as the destination employer, were changed; most of the wording and demands are identical. OpenAI employees said at the time that they would move to Microsoft unless the board stepped down and reinstated Altman.
In the document circulating on X this time, the corresponding passage in the Nvidia version was changed to say that the signatories would join SpaceX’s Terafab project.
Meanwhile, Musk said on X that day that a petition calling for former CEO Huang’s return was underway and that he would sign it as well. It has not been confirmed which document Musk was referring to.
There were also calls within Nvidia for former CEO Huang to return. According to Wired, a U.S. technology publication, an employee posted a message in the company’s suggestion box before Huang’s departure was announced, saying the board should listen to employees’ views. The post received more than 1,600 comments, most of them in support of Huang’s return.
Huang admitted to having an extramarital relationship with Alice Huang (Chinese name Huang Le), who is suspected of having cooperated with Chinese intelligence agencies. Reports later emerged alleging that he had also had an extramarital relationship with an employee at the company. Nvidia announced Huang’s resignation on the 12th and appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Colette Kress as interim CEO.
[email protected] Lee Jeong-hwa Reporter