Key Takeaways
- NVIDIA shares fell 5% after Jensen Huang resigned as CEO, and President Trump posted that Apple’s Tim Cook should take his place.
- Cook is the best operator in tech, but NVIDIA needs a technical leader who can set its chip and software roadmap.
- Cook is still Apple’s executive chairman, and Apple competes with NVIDIA for TSMC’s most advanced manufacturing capacity.
- NVIDIA’s board picks the next CEO and says it will look at people from inside and outside the company. The Nov. 17 results are the first look at the roadmap without Huang.
NVIDIA (NVDA) shares are down 5% today after the company said Jensen Huang had resigned as CEO, effective immediately. CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO while the board looks for a permanent one.
Huang’s exit follows his admission on Sunday of an affair with a businesswoman whom the U.S. intelligence community reportedly believes is a Chinese spy.
Within hours, President Donald Trump had a replacement in mind. He posted on Truth Social that “there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!”
Tim Cook is, of course, the former CEO of Apple (AAPL). He handed that job to John Ternus on Sept. 1 and stayed on as executive chairman.
I’m pretty sure this is a very bad idea from the president.
The next CEO inherits a huge roadmap
Analysts expect NVIDIA’s revenue to more than triple in two years, from $215.9 billion in the year ended January 2026 to $691 billion in the year ending January 2028:
A CEO change by itself shouldn’t move those estimates. But they assume Blackwell, Vera Rubin and whatever comes next ship on time, and that’s now somebody else’s call. Board chair Harvey Jones, the former CEO of Synopsys, said in NVIDIA’s release that “we expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.”
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Cook earned the legend part
Let’s give Cook full credit. He’s the best operator and supply-chain manager in tech, and he ran Apple from 2011 until Sept. 1 of this year. Over his last decade in the job, Apple’s revenue more than doubled, from $229 billion in fiscal 2017 to $479 billion in the year ended September 2026:
That’s an operations machine at work. Apple’s engineers set the product roadmap, and Cook got it built, shipped and sold at enormous scale.
NVIDIA runs on its engineering
NVIDIA’s edge is its chip architectures and CUDA, which more than 7.5 million developers build on, according to its annual report. Its engineer co-founder set that roadmap for 33 years, and the spending behind it keeps climbing. R&D grew from $1.46 billion in fiscal 2017 to $18.5 billion in fiscal 2026:
The next CEO decides where that money goes, and which architectures NVIDIA bets on years before customers ask for them.
Cook himself made the case for an engineer this spring. When Apple named his successor, Cook praised Ternus, then its head of hardware engineering, as having “the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor.” Apple picked an engineer to run a hardware company, with Cook’s blessing. NVIDIA should do the same.
Cook’s Washington skills are already spoken for
The best argument for Cook, aside from general operational excellence, is Washington and Beijing. Few CEOs know either better, and NVIDIA’s problems now run through both.
But I think Cook is pretty happy to stay on as executive chairman at Apple, and obviously there’s no way he could do both since Apple and NVIDIA directly compete for TSMC capacity. And nothing suggests Cook is a candidate, or that he wants the job. NVIDIA’s board picks its CEO, and it says it will consider internal and external candidates. Analysts have already floated engineers inside the company, including CTO Michael Kagan and chief scientist Bill Dally.
NVIDIA needs an engineer in the chair
Cook is a legend, and I’m sure it’s always flattering to be boosted by the president. But NVIDIA’s next CEO has to look at a chip architecture and know whether it’ll be ready in two years, and that’s just a different skillset.
The first look at the roadmap without Huang comes with third-quarter results on Tuesday, Nov. 17. In August, management expected Vera Rubin to make up about 20% of data center revenue in that quarter, and any sign of a slip matters far more than who Trump wants in the job. Of course, the board’s search could take a while, so for now the roadmap is in Kress’s hands.
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