Jensen Huang Fallout May Be Worse for AI Industry than NVDA: Nvidia Investor Zack Guzman Fri, November 13, 2026 at 12:13 PM EST 4 min read NVDA -3.24% Trade NVIDIA on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Nvidia may have lost its iconic CEO, but the brunt of the impact of Jensen Huang's stunning departure could hit the entire artificial intelligence industry.
That's the warning from longtime Nvidia investor and Gerber Kawasaki CEO Ross Gerber, who argues that while the chipmaker has the management team and competitive advantages to survive without its co-founder, the broader AI industry has lost perhaps its most effective advocate at a time when more questions are mounting.
"I think it hurts the industry more than it hurts Nvidia in some ways," Gerber told Coinage's Market Signal in a new interview, pointing to Huang's unusual ability to make the AI revolution accessible to investors and the general public.
"Jensen was kind of like a breath of fresh air," Gerber said. "He was funny and he was sharp and really could explain things on a level. So it's very hard to replace a Jensen for the industry."
The comments come after Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO on Thursday amid escalating revelations about extramarital relationships, including one with a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China. Reports of relationships with company employees further complicated the scandal, prompting an abrupt leadership change at the world's leading AI chipmaker. Nvidia named longtime CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO while its board searches for a permanent replacement.
But for Gerber, the more consequential question may be who is left to sell the AI industry's vision.
He offered a particularly harsh assessment of the technology's other prominent executives, criticizing Tesla CEO Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for what he sees as their inability to connect with the public.
Huang, by contrast, had become a rare figure capable of generating enthusiasm for an industry facing growing scrutiny over its enormous capital requirements, environmental footprint and uncertain economic returns.
"That's a blow to the industry because who can fill that role?" Gerber asked. "Who can go on stage and say, 'I run a huge AI company and don't worry, you can trust me?' There just isn't anybody. I mean, I just don't know if there could be a worse marketing situation for the most consequential technology in the world."
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Despite the reputational damage, Gerber sees little reason to believe Huang's departure will fundamentally alter Nvidia's earnings trajectory.
Gerber acknowledged that Nvidia had lost a uniquely talented communicator, but questioned whether the damage justified the roughly $600 billion in market capitalization he said had been erased during the turmoil. From an investment perspective, he argued that Nvidia's existing customer commitments, technological advantages and dominant software ecosystem remain firmly intact.
"If you think that Nvidia's earnings are going to be meaningfully different over the next, let's say, 18 months because of this, I don't," Gerber said.
The investor highlighted what he estimated to be Nvidia's unusually depressed valuation of roughly 10 times forward earnings, a figure he characterized as a potentially extraordinary opportunity for long-term shareholders.
"It's very rare that you're going to see a business as good as Nvidia trading at ten times forward P/E," Gerber said.
He suggested that investors buying shares around $165 could eventually look back on the leadership crisis as a rare entry point, although he cautioned against attempting to predict a market bottom.
That view echoes a similar take from Dan Niles before Jensen Huang's departure was made official — using the analogy of Apple's continued outperformance even after iconic CEO Steve Jobs stepped down due to health reasons.
As an Nvidia investor, Gerber voiced his confidence in the company's selection to appoint CFO Collete Kress as interim CEO. Kress has been Nvidia's CFO since 2013. But Gerber acknowledged that her financial expertise may not translate into the same kind of public-facing leadership that Huang provided.
"I don't know if she has the chops on television and in presentations because she's a CFO," Gerber said. "That's kind of what they need from a CEO is somebody that can be the face of the company and really market Nvidia to customers, clients, governments and such."
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