Nvidia investors urged the board to consider Huang's return

Nvidia's two major shareholders have asked the company's board of directors to carefully consider options for future management, including the possible return of founder Jensen Huang as chairman. Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner published the corresponding letter on X social network on Friday, the document was also signed by Atreides Management head Gavin Baker.

In the letter, the investors emphasized that interim chief Colette Kress is able to lead the company competently - she was Nvidia's chief financial officer for 13 years, and the board appointed her as the leader on Thursday. At the same time, according to shareholders, the founder, who has led Nvidia for years, deserves a balanced and leisurely decision-making process about the future leadership, without rushing into a replacement.

As of the end of June, Altimeter Capital owned 9.4 million shares of Nvidia worth almost $1.9 billion - this is the fund's largest open position. Atreides at that time had 1.2 million shares worth about $250 million.

Why did Huang leave?

Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday amid allegations of extramarital affairs, including with a woman named Alice Huang, who is suspected of having ties to Chinese intelligence. It also worked with Nvidia's client, Singapore-based Megaspeed, which the US Department of Justice is investigating for involvement in diverting limited supplies of artificial intelligence chips to China.

The situation surrounding Huang has already been commented on by the head of SpaceX, Elon Musk - he announced on Friday that he had signed a petition calling for the return of the Nvidia founder to his post. The petition called "Stand with Jensen" has collected more than 100,000 signatures, including more than 5,000 current employees of the company.

At the same time, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick agreed on December 10 to give an explanation to a specialized Senate committee on whether the department is adequately fulfilling its function of preventing China from receiving advanced AI chips. Jensen Huang himself was also asked to give an explanation.