Elon Musk joins 100,000+ signers on a petition to reinstate Jensen Huang — including 5,000+ who say they work at Nvidia Rudro Chakrabarti Sat, November 14, 2026 at 12:25 PM EST 8 min read NVDA -3.12% TSLA -2.60% SPCX -2.64% Explore stocks 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.
Elon Musk wants Jensen Huang back in charge of Nvidia [NASDAQ: NVDA] — and he's putting his name on it.
"A petition is underway to reinstate Jensen and I'm signing it too," the Tesla and SpaceX CEO [NASDAQ: TSLA] posted on X on Nov. 13.
He isn't alone. As of 10:30 a.m. ET on Nov. 14, an online letter called Stand with Jensen listed more than 100,000 names — including more than 5,000 people who say they currently work at Nvidia.
Huang co-founded the chipmaker in 1993 and led it for 33 years, building it into one of the world's most valuable companies. Nvidia announced Nov. 12 that he had resigned as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. The board accepted his resignation Nov. 11, according to a regulatory filing. CFO Colette Kress is now interim CEO, and director Harvey Jones became the board's first-ever chair.
His exit came after reports that he'd had extramarital relationships, including one with Alice Huang (no relation), a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed who U.S. intelligence officials reportedly suspect was recruited by China's top spy agency. Huang has admitted to an affair. Neither he nor Nvidia has been charged with any wrongdoing thus far.
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The Stand with Jensen letter asks the board to "bring Jensen back while an independent investigation establishes the facts, unless and until you can provide compelling evidence that his removal is in NVIDIA's best interests."
Beyond reinstatement, the letter asks the board to disclose the scope, independence and timeline of its investigation, give Huang a chance to respond before any final decision, and publicly explain the evidence behind his removal. The signers say they haven't been shown evidence that the woman at the center of the controversy was a spy, and argue Huang deserves "due process, not mob justice."
The site says it isn't affiliated with Nvidia or Huang. Signers identify themselves, and organizers say they may hold new signatures for review before counting them.
At this point, the site's live tracker broke the names down like this:
Numbers are moving fast, and this is probably already out of date. For context, Nvidia had about 42,000 employees at the end of its last fiscal year in January, according to its annual report, so the self-identified current staff would represent roughly 12% of the company.
Musk is listed at the top as a shareholder, alongside Replit CEO Amjad Masad; Gavin Baker, managing partner of Atreides Management; Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney; and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan. Cohere's Aidan Gomez and Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani are listed as partners. Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke replied "You have my sword" to Musk's petition post, though Moneywise didn't find his name on the list.
Identities on the site are self-reported, and the list includes entries that appear to be fake or duplicated, including at least one offensive name listed as a current Nvidia employee. There's even an unverifiable entry for actress Sydney Sweeney listed as a shareholder. The totals are best read as a rough gauge of support rather than a true headcount.
The pushback started inside the company. A longtime engineer posted to Nvidia's internal suggestion box urging the board to weigh employee sentiment before acting, according to internal correspondence reviewed by Wired. The post has drawn more than 1,600 comments, several asking the board to find a way to bring Huang back.
One employee sent a companywide email demanding transparency about Huang's exit, writing: "I stand by Jensen." About two dozen employees posted support on LinkedIn, and Moneywise couldn't find any employee posts backing his departure.
"Nvidia is Nvidia because of Jensen," one employee told Wired.
In an informal poll, we asked Moneywise followers whether Nvidia should bring Jensen back. Of 164 votes, 82% said "most definitely." Just 6% said "absolutely not," while 12% picked "he's poaching them all," a nod to the idea that Nvidia employees would follow Huang wherever he goes next.
The post follows days of public support from Musk. On the night of Nov. 11, before Huang resigned, Musk replied "That would be an honor" to a ZeroHedge post urging him to hire Huang. The next day, he answered "True words" to AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant, who wrote that "one does not just simply replace the founder," pointing to Steve Jobs and Travis Kalanick.
When Ravikant followed up by calling Huang "the Steve Jobs of Nvidia" and "irreplaceable," Musk replied "True." He also replied "Always" to a post praising him for being a true friend to Huang.
The two go back years. In May, Musk replied "True" to a repost of photos of the pair taken a decade apart, captioned "The most important thing in life is having true friends."
Musk also has a business stake in the outcome. His rocket and AI company, SpaceX [NASDAQ: SPCX], has committed to building its AI data centers exclusively with Nvidia chips, and Nvidia owns a stake in SpaceX worth billions. The petition site also lists him as an Nvidia shareholder.
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Since resigning, Huang has kept a low profile. Photos published by the Daily Mail show friends and family gathering at what the outlet described as his $38 million Pacific Heights mansion in San Francisco in the hours after he stepped down, as food deliveries, including bags of fried chicken, arrived at the door.
Washington isn't done with him. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Huang agreed to come in. Three House committee chairs then asked him to sit for a closed-door, transcribed interview on Dec. 1, giving him until 8 p.m. ET on Nov. 13 to confirm or face a subpoena. It wasn't immediately clear whether Huang had confirmed in writing by the deadline.
Senate Banking Committee chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., has separately asked Huang to testify on Dec. 3. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whom Scott also called to testify, has agreed to appear.
The petition's backers argue the board moved before the facts were in, and the central question is still open. Attorney General Todd Blanche said Nov. 12 there had been "no conclusions reached by the Department of Justice, or by me" about whether Alice Huang was a spy, according to Reuters. Beijing has denied that she is one, and President Donald Trump has said it isn't yet clear either way.
What is on the record is narrower. Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said Nov. 12 that she has been barred from re-entering the country since February amid an investigation into possible offenses tied to Megaspeed, though it said that investigation did not concern espionage.
There's recent precedent. In November 2023, OpenAI's board fired CEO Sam Altman, then reached a deal to bring him back about five days later after hundreds of employees threatened to quit.
Even the White House has weighed in on both sides. President Donald Trump called Huang on Tuesday urging him to fight for his job, The New York Times reported. After Huang resigned, Trump posted on Truth Social that there was "only one man to take his place": Apple chairman Tim Cook.
But the decision rests with Nvidia's board, and it has given no sign of reversing course. The company is continuing its own investigation into Huang, according to The Information. On Nov. 13, the board said it was still selecting a search firm for the CEO role and had not formally engaged any potential candidates, after the Financial Times reported that it had approached Arm CEO Rene Haas. Washington's scrutiny also goes beyond Huang himself: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has questioned whether Nvidia knew who it was selling chips to.
Sam Altman came back within five days, so there's still time to see how this unfolds. The clock is ticking until Nvidia's Tuesday earnings call.
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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Elon Musk joins 100,000+ signers on a petition to reinstate Jensen Huang — including 5,000+ who say they work at Nvidia
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