Nvidia’s Next CEO Could Come From Inside – Or Arm: Here’s Who Traders Are Watching In The Succession Race

Some directors reportedly favor CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO, while an outside firm searches for successors.

• Elon Musk said hiring Jensen Huang “would be an honor,” weeks after SpaceX committed to a $40 billion Nvidia equipment lease.
• Nvidia’s board reportedly weighed removing Huang after a second affair report, amid an inquiry into possible foreign intelligence targeting.
• CUDA pioneer Ian Buck is another possibility, with some analysts suggesting he and Kress share the interim role.

Nvidia Corp (NVDA) is facing its biggest leadership test since founding in 1993, with reports of boardroom discussions about CEO Jensen Huang’s future putting the spotlight on a succession plan the $4 trillion chipmaker has never publicly laid out. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk added an unexpected twist on Thursday, saying he would be honored to hire Jensen Huang even as speculation about potential replacements from longtime Nvidia executives to ARM CEO Rene Haas gains ground. 

NVDA stock has fallen 7% so far this week, heading for its sixth straight weekly loss. Shares are also on track to snap a three-year streak of annual gains. 

Musk Weighs In as NVDA Board Meets Over Huang’s Future

“That would be an honor,” Musk replied when an X user said, “Elon please hire Jensen.” Just weeks earlier, SpaceX had committed to a $40 billion lease for Nvidia chips and related equipment. 

Musk’s comments come as Nvidia directors met on Wednesday to discuss Jensen Huang’s future following reports of a second affair, this one with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s healthcare chief, who reports directly to him. The board apparently briefed the White House before the meeting.

Days earlier, Huang had acknowledged infidelity after reports linked him to Alice Huang, an executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed. U.S. officials reportedly suspected she had ties to Chinese intelligence, a claim Beijing denied. Nvidia’s board has opened an independent inquiry into whether a foreign intelligence service had targeted its CEO. But directors said they had no reason to believe company secrets or U.S. national security had been compromised.

Colette Kress and Ian Buck: Nvidia’s Internal Successor Options?

Some Nvidia directors reportedly favor CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO. Kress has led Nvidia’s finances since 2013, and investors know her voice from quarterly earnings calls. The board is also apparently working with an outside firm to identify potential successors.

Replacing Huang would mean taking over a company where 60 executives report directly to him. Nvidia has never publicly named a successor. “Mr. Huang being removed immediately could be challenging for Nvidia since it does not have a succession plan in place,” said D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria.

Meanwhile, Ian Buck brings a different kind of experience. He joined Nvidia in 2004 and helped build CUDA, the software platform developers use to run AI on Nvidia chips. He now oversees the company’s work with some of its biggest cloud customers.

“Buck would be a hugely strong replacement who brings the right technical expertise, customer relationships, experience, and employee relationships for the role,” said Time. They also suggested Kress and Buck could share the interim job, pairing her financial experience with his knowledge of Nvidia’s tech and customers.

Why Arm’s CEO Could Be an Outside Pick 

Arm CEO Rene Haas spent seven years at Nvidia, where he ran its computing products business. He also saw firsthand why Huang resisted succession planning. “He didn’t like the idea,” Haas recalled in a 2024 interview. “He felt it would create competition among executives and be divisive.”

“If I had to put money on which external candidate could become next $NVDA CEO then it would be $ARM CEO Rene Haas,” The Futurum Group’s Shay Boloor said on X. “He spent 7 years at Nvidia and understands Jensen’s culture and what makes him interesting is that Nvidia’s Grace and Vera CPUs run on Arm architecture so while he missed rise of NVLink, Mellanox and rack-scale AI he understands CPU side of Nvidia’s platform better than almost anyone else on the outside.”

Additionally, AMD CEO Lisa Su has also been floated as a possible outside successor.

Could Nvidia’s Next CEO Come From The Huang Family?

Huang’s daughter Madison oversees marketing for Nvidia’s physical AI products, while his son Spencer works in robotics product management. Madison’s husband, Nico Caprez, leads Nvidia’s global AI infrastructure growth and helped seek $500 billion in financing for customers buying its chips for data centers.

When asked whether Madison might succeed him, Huang said in an interview that if either of his children wanted the job, “they have to go earn it.” He also spoke about the pressure they would face. “I’m responsible for an entire industry, and so I think the pressure of being the CEO is high.”

Traders Favor Buck And Give SpaceX Long Odds

Ian Buck led Polymarket’s bets for Nvidia’s next permanent CEO at 38%, followed by CFO Colette Kress at 28%. Arm CEO Rene Haas’s odds fell from 25% to 5%, while former Nvidia sales chief Jay Puri stood at 3%. 

Traders also saw Huang’s departure as far more likely than a move to one of Musk’s companies. On Wednesday, Polymarket put the odds of Huang leaving Nvidia by year-end at 88%. A separate market gave him a 6% chance of accepting a formal role at SpaceX or one of its units, including xAI, by Dec.31. On Kalshi, Tesla and SpaceX/xAI each drew about 4% odds as Huang’s next employer.

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