Picture the phone call. On one end, a director of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, a company suddenly without the only chief executive it has ever known. On the other, a man who spent seven years inside that same company, then left to run the one business it once tried to buy for $40 billion.
That call, according to the Financial Times, as reported by Reuters, has now happened. Nvidia’s board has approached Arm chief executive Rene Haas as a potential successor to Jensen Huang, who resigned on Thursday after 33 years at the top.
It is the first name to surface in a search that will decide who runs the company at the centre of the artificial intelligence boom. There is no offer yet, and no guarantee there will be one.
But the approach alone tells us a great deal about how Nvidia’s board is thinking — and about the tug-of-war now playing out between the boardroom and the workforce.
What Nvidia’s Board Actually Did
The Financial Times reported on Friday that Nvidia’s board has approached Haas, citing people familiar with the matter. Haas is one of several candidates under consideration, and the report was careful to stress that he may never receive an offer — or accept one if it comes.
Nvidia’s board, for its part, is playing down the story. It told Reuters it is still selecting an executive search firm and has not formally engaged any candidate. “Any speculation regarding individual candidates, whether internal or external, is premature,” the board said in a statement.
That is familiar corporate language, and it does not contradict the report. Approaching a candidate informally is not the same as formally engaging one. Arm declined to comment, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the report.
Huang stepped down on Thursday, and chief financial officer Colette Kress is serving as interim chief executive while longtime director Harvey Jones has become the board’s first-ever chair. The board is moving fast, but it is also making clear that the process is at its earliest stage.
Who Is Rene Haas?
Haas, 64, studied electrical engineering at Clarkson University and worked at chip companies Tensilica and Scintera Networks before joining Nvidia in 2006. He spent seven years there, rising to vice president and general manager of its computing products business.
Then, in 2013, he left for Arm, the British chip designer whose technology sits inside nearly every smartphone on the planet.
At Arm he rose to chief commercial officer in 2015 and head of its intellectual-property products group in 2017, becoming chief executive in February 2022 — just as Nvidia’s proposed $40 billion takeover of Arm collapsed under pressure from regulators.
Haas was suddenly running a business his former employer had tried, unsuccessfully, to buy. Four years on, the irony has come full circle: the company that failed to buy Arm may now try to hire its chief executive instead.
The $40 Billion Twist Behind the Approach
That failed takeover is more than a curiosity. Haas understands Nvidia from the inside, having run one of its product businesses for years, and he maintains strong ties to Huang and to some Nvidia directors, according to the Financial Times.
He also knows how to run a listed chip company through a storm. He steered Arm back onto the Nasdaq in September 2023 at an initial valuation of about $54.5 billion, one of the year’s largest debuts, giving owner SoftBank a way to sell shares while keeping control.
Arm reported $1.44 billion in revenue for the quarter ended September 30, up 27 percent from a year earlier, with royalties from data-centre chips doubling. Initial commercial deliveries of its new CPU remain on track for early 2027.
Arm’s business differs from Nvidia’s in one fundamental way. Nvidia sells graphics processors and complete computing systems, while Arm licenses chip designs to companies including Apple, Amazon and Qualcomm, earning fees and royalties when customers use its technology.
That licensing model is now spreading from phones into cloud servers — the same data centres where Nvidia’s chips dominate.
Why Haas Fits — and Why the Move Is Complicated
On paper, Haas is a natural candidate. He has run a public chip company, he knows Nvidia’s culture and customers, and he has spent four years pushing Arm into the AI data-centre market Nvidia rules. Few outsiders could walk in with that combination.
But the move would be far from simple. Haas also sits on SoftBank’s board and has served as chief executive of SoftBank Group International since April. A move to Nvidia would require untangling those ties.
The two companies are also partners whose interests increasingly overlap in data-centre hardware. Arm designs the processors that sit beside Nvidia’s graphics chips in AI servers. A chief executive crossing from one to the other would carry that web of relationships with him.
The Other Side of the Building: Employees Want Huang Back
While the board searches outward, a campaign is building inside Nvidia to look backward. An internal post urging the board to consider employee sentiment has drawn more than 1,600 comments, many calling for Huang’s reinstatement, according to Wired.
“If you believe in the mission, bring back THE boss,” one anonymous employee wrote. Other staff members have demanded transparency around his departure. The campaign shows that Huang, for all the controversy surrounding his exit, still has supporters inside the company he built.
The board had been preparing to consider his dismissal before he resigned. Elon Musk has added his voice from outside, saying on X that a petition was underway to reinstate Huang and that he would sign it.
The support is real, but nothing in the reporting suggests the board has opened talks to bring Huang back.
Who Else Is in the Frame?
Haas is not the only name circulating. Analysts have also floated Nvidia data-centre executive Ian Buck and AMD chief Lisa Su, though neither is a confirmed candidate. Earlier reports also mentioned Apple hardware chief Johny Srouji and Nvidia chief technology officer Michael Kagan.
For now, Kress holds the job. She keeps her chief financial officer role while serving as interim chief executive, and she will face investors when Nvidia reports quarterly earnings on November 17 — just days after the company’s leadership was upended.
That earnings call will be watched more closely than usual. Investors will want to hear how the company is holding up, and they will listen for any hint about the search. A company that has lost more than $1 trillion in market value since November 3 cannot afford a long, messy succession.
What Happens Next in the Nvidia CEO Search
The search is still at the beginning. The board has not even chosen the executive search firm that will run it. Haas may be interviewed and passed over — or he may decide that untangling himself from SoftBank and Arm is not worth the trouble.
What is clear is that Nvidia’s board wants someone who can do two things at once: keep the AI chip machine running, and steady a company shaken by scandal and a plunging share price.
Haas, with his Nvidia past and his Arm present, is one of the few people in the industry who can credibly claim to do both. Whether the board agrees — and whether Haas is willing — is the question that will hang over the chip industry until the search ends.
For now, the phone call has been made. The answer is still to come.
