At 08:34 Singapore time on November 14, Atreides Management managing partner and CIO Gavin Baker (@GavinSBaker) posted on X a letter that he and Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner sent to NVIDIA's board. Writing as shareholders, they ask the board to run a "slow, measured, and deliberate process" on NVIDIA's future leadership that leaves all options open, including Jensen Huang's return, and to avoid rushing to replace him before the facts are known; they add that Interim CEO Colette Kress and her team can lead capably in the meantime. The post has about 1.35M views, 9,580 likes and 1,160 reposts. Earlier, Elon Musk replied that "a petition is underway to reinstate Jensen and I'm signing it too," a reply with about 207K likes. Baker later said the petition had roughly 20,000 signatures, including about 2,000 NVIDIA employees (his own claim, not independently verified). There is pushback too: Tesla senior staff engineer Yun-Ta Tsai argued that employees who really want Huang back should resign to make the point. This is a community discussion; NVIDIA's board has not publicly responded to the letter or the petition.
Key Takeaways
- ✓Signed by Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner and Atreides Management managing partner and CIO Gavin Baker; Baker calls it a first for Atreides (post)
- ✓The ask: a slow, deliberate process on future leadership that keeps Jensen Huang's return possible; if the board still decides against it once the facts are known, that is the board's prerogative
- ✓Elon Musk replied on November 14 (04:51 Singapore time) that he would sign a petition to reinstate Huang; the reply has about 207K likes and 7.3M views (post)
- ✓Baker says the petition has about 20,000 signatures, including about 2,000 NVIDIA employees, and that he backs reinstating Huang while an independent investigation runs; the counts are his claim
- ✓Pushback: Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai's post (about 17K likes) says employees should resign to make the point; NVIDIA has not responded, and the November 17 (US time) earnings call is the next thing to watch
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Background
NVIDIA is the core compute supplier of the AI boom. On November 12 it announced that Jensen Huang had resigned as president, CEO and director, effective immediately, with CFO Colette Kress serving as Interim CEO while a permanent CEO search begins. The release gave no reason. Over the two days since, whether Huang should come back has become a running debate on X, drawing in investors, engineers and Elon Musk.
What the letter and petition ask for
The debate is about governance, not technology. The letter Gavin Baker posted comes from Altimeter and Atreides and makes one request as shareholders: do not rush to name a successor, keep every option open including Huang's return, and decide once the facts are known. It also says plainly that if the board then decides against bringing him back, that is the board's call. A separate online petition is running in parallel: Musk said he would sign it, and Baker says it has about 20,000 signatures.
Numbers that matter
This is a community discussion with no benchmarks. The verifiable numbers are public post metrics: Baker's letter post has about 1.35M views and 9,580 likes; Musk's reply has about 207K likes and 7.3M views; Yun-Ta Tsai's opposing post has about 17K likes. The claim of about 20,000 petition signatures, including about 2,000 NVIDIA employees, comes from Baker and could not be independently verified.
What developers should do
Little changes in the short term: NVIDIA says operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap continue, so CUDA, drivers and NIM keep shipping as usual. Watch the November 17 (US time) earnings call for what the new leadership says about the roadmap, supply and leadership plans. Teams that rely on NVIDIA GPUs or its cloud partners can use this moment to review multi-vendor fallbacks. All views above belong to the people quoted, not to NVIDIA.
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