WASHINGTON — After NVIDIA co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive, Silicon Valley quickly rallied around a petition campaign demanding his return. A petition called “Stand with Jensen” had collected more than 21,000 signatures, with Tesla CEO and US billionaire Elon Musk listed first as a shareholder, making him the most prominent figure in the wave of support.
Musk said he had signed a petition for Huang’s reinstatement a day after his resignation. “A petition is underway to reinstate Jensen and I’m signing it too,” Musk said in response to a social media post calling for reinstating Jensen back. That statement further fueled the petition’s momentum, which was already building in tech circles. In response to another post suggesting that Musk hire the former Nvidia CEO, the Tesla CEO replied: “That would be an honor.”
According to the petition website, among the more than 21,000 participants, more than 2,000 are current or former NVIDIA employees, with the rest being outside supporters. Besides Musk, the list includes NVIDIA Senior Director Roopa Prabhu, prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan.
The petition was launched by NVIDIA employees under the theme “Thirty-three years deserve an explanation,” demanding that the board not hastily finalize a decision to let Huang go before the relevant investigation is clarified. The website also published a letter to the board with three specific demands, with the core argument being that the board should first confirm whether there are sufficient grounds to conclude that removing Huang serves the company’s best interests, rather than completing the personnel action before investigation results are available.
The letter stressed that they had not seen evidence sufficient to prove that the woman at the center of the controversy is a spy, and that “suspicion or association alone is not enough to justify ending Jensen’s leadership.” The website also stated that the open letter is independent of NVIDIA and Huang, has not been endorsed by either, and that signers’ identities are self-reported and unverified.
Source: Saudi Gazette