Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called for Nvidia to hire its next CEO from outside the company following Jensen Huang’s resignation, arguing that questions surrounding the chipmaker’s compliance with U.S. export restrictions warrant a major leadership shake-up on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Bessent questioned whether Nvidia’s alleged export compliance failures were isolated incidents or reflected deeper problems within the company.
“We will see if Nvidia intentionally ignored the warning signs of these shell companies, many of them in Singapore,” Bessent said, claiming that Nvidia’s accounts showed a crash in sales to China followed by a surge in sales to Singapore.
“And I have seen reporting that only 1% of the chips sold in Singapore remained in Singapore,” he added. “This makes me think that, as the board conducts a search for a new leader, that they need to go outside the company.”
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“They need a dramatic shake-up.”
The Treasury chief’s comments follow Huang’s resignation Thursday after Nvidia’s board investigated his reported affair with a tech executive suspected of being a Chinese intelligence source.
Huang is also alleged to have had extramarital relationships with two employees at Nvidia.
Regardless of Huang’s “foibles,” Bessent demanded answers “in the next 10 days from the board and from the outside counsel.”
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Nvidia’s board of directors has approached Rene Haas, the CEO of British chipmaker Arm, in its search for the successor to Jensen Huang, according to a report from the Financial Times.
The outlet reported Friday that Haas, who had led Arm since 2022, spent seven years working at Nvidia more than a decade ago and has a “strong relationship” with Huang and some of Nvidia’s board members.
“It’s a no comment from us,” Arm told FOX Business when asked about the report.
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In the meantime, Colette Kress, Nvidia’s current executive vice president and chief financial officer, has agreed to serve as interim CEO in the wake of Huang’s departure, the company said Thursday.
“The Board is initiating a search for a permanent chief executive officer and will consider internal and external candidates,” Nvidia said.
FOX Business’ Greg Norman-Diamond contributed to this report.
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