Analysis
As of November 14, 2026, a petition calling on Nvidia's board to reinstate Jensen Huang as CEO had more than 115,000 signatures, two days after Huang resigned, TechCrunch reported on Saturday afternoon. The petition site says its signers include 5,965 current Nvidia employees, 1,108 former employees and 63,063 shareholders. Named supporters include Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Replit CEO Amjad Masad and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.
Pulse covered the resignation itself on November 12. What changed since then is that the exit now has an organized opposition inside the company's own workforce and shareholder base. The petition says signers are concerned that Huang "was removed without meaningful due process," and asks the board to bring him back while an independent investigation establishes the facts, and to tell the public more about what happened, per TechCrunch. Those are counts the petition site reports about itself; no outside party has verified them.
What Nvidia announced on November 12
Nvidia's own announcement, filed with the SEC, says "Jensen Huang has resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board, effective immediately." Colette Kress, Nvidia's executive vice president and CFO, agreed to serve as interim CEO and keeps the CFO job until a permanent successor is named. The board appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever Chair and said it will consider internal and external candidates for the permanent role. "The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team," Jones said in the release, adding that the board expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption.
“Pulse covered the resignation itself on November 12.”
The filing gives no reason for the departure. TechCrunch reported that Huang resigned several days after confessing to an affair. Kress's own statement credits "the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years."
How big is the business Kress inherited?
Nvidia's second-quarter fiscal 2027 release reported revenue of $96.2 billion for the quarter ended July 26, 2026, with data center revenue up 117% from a year earlier.
The company guided third-quarter revenue to $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2%. That guidance was set under Huang; Kress will be the one asked to defend it.
Why the Huang exit matters for startup funding
Nvidia and its venture arm NVentures have joined 121 startup funding deals so far in 2026, a record, and led or co-led about one in five of them, according to Crunchbase News. Crunchbase counted 91 Nvidia financings in 2025 and 54 the year before. PitchBook's count for 2026 is 105, as cited by TechCrunch, so the exact figure depends on the database. Pulse tallied the same Crunchbase record in its November 13 story.
Investors told TechCrunch that those decisions ran through Huang. Umesh Padval, managing partner at Seligman Ventures, said most significant startup investment calls came from Huang himself: "When Nvidia was on the cap table, everyone felt safe." An investor who was not named described Kress as "much more conservative" and doubted she would commit the same money to early-stage startups.
Value Add VC data
Rounds Nvidia or NVentures joined in 2026, per Crunchbase News. Amounts are the full round, not Nvidia's check:
- Jan 2026, Skild AI Series C -- $1.4 billion, backed by NVentures (Crunchbase News)
- Feb 2026, Anthropic Series G -- $30 billion, Nvidia participated (Crunchbase News)
- Mar 2026, OpenAI Series G -- closed at $122 billion, Nvidia participated (Crunchbase News)
- Sep 2026, Crusoe Series F -- $3.9 billion, Nvidia participated (Crunchbase News)
- Sep 2026, Mistral AI Series D -- roughly $3.5 billion, Nvidia participated (Crunchbase News)
- Oct 2026, Bedrock Robotics Series C -- $600 million, backed by NVentures (Crunchbase News)
The case against a comeback
A petition is not a shareholder vote. Nothing in Nvidia's November 12 filing leaves room for a reversal: Huang also left the board, the company created a separate Chair role for Jones, and the search is already open to outside candidates. The 63,063 shareholders the site counts carry no disclosed share totals, so the list says nothing about how much of Nvidia's stock stands behind it. None of the named supporters sits on Nvidia's board, so their backing adds public pressure but no vote.
The first hard test comes on Tuesday, November 17, when Nvidia reports third-quarter fiscal 2027 results at about 1:20 p.m. PT, with the call at 2 p.m. PT, per the company's filing. It will be Kress's first earnings call as interim CEO, against a $108.0 billion revenue guide that Huang set.
