With Jensen Huang stepping down from Nvidia amid a second affair allegation coming yesterday, Nvidia will be looking for a new permanent CEO, with Interim CEO Colette Kress taking over for now. There will no doubt be lots of names thrown out over the coming weeks, and current US President Donald Trump has joined the pile, insisting the AI company hire ex-Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Taking to Truth Social, he says, "NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place - TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!"
Tim Cook became the CEO of Apple on August 24, 2011, famously taking over for Steve Jobs, the founder of the company. Tim Cook stepped away from his seat as CEO in August, 2026, but has stayed on as the Executive Chairman of Apple.
Tim Cook and Donald Trump have had a longstanding professional relationship, with the ex-Apple CEO reportedly donating $1 million to the Trump inauguration. Trump brought both Jensen Huang and Tim Cook on his trip to China earlier this year, where they had negotiations with the Chinese government to open up trade relations in regard to AI hardware. This was the first presidential trip to China since Trump's first visit back in 2017.
Whether or not the 66-year-old ex-Apple CEO is the right man for the job, his relationship with Trump is undeniable, and they both seem intent on growing AI in America and supplying more (but a limited amount of) AI to China.
Nvidia is a company that owes its sudden net worth explosion to the widespread adoption of AI. It went from a company with a market cap of hundreds of billions in 2020 to a company with a market cap of trillions in 2026. It saw a stock dip this morning, but even at its lowest stock price in more than a year, the company's market cap is still close to $4 trillion. Apple, too, has grown significantly and is currently the most highly valued company in the world.
Tim Cook is just one of many names tipped to take over as CEO in the future, with some Nvidia staff such as current CTO Michael Kagan among them. But, as far as external candidates are concerned, one might consider Intel's CEO Lip-Bu Tan, AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, Arm's CEO Rene Haas or even Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk as potential candidates. The doors really are wide open.
That's assuming they would actually want the job. Nvidia is a company under political and economic scrutiny, and that's before mentioning whether or not the AI bubble will pop. It seems like, whoever gets the job, they will likely have many sleepless nights.
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