Elon Musk Mocks Nvidia's Board as the Open Letter to Reinstate Jensen Huang Passes 65,000 Signatures
@GS_VCactivist This is the board making decisions about what used to be the most valuable company on Earth!? 🤦♂️
Context
The world's most followed tech executive attacking Nvidia's directors adds pressure on a board already facing employees and investors who want Huang back.
Nvidia's board accepted Jensen Huang's resignation on November 12 and named CFO Colette Kress interim CEO. An independent open letter at standwithjensen.com asks the board to reinstate him, and Elon Musk said on November 13 that he had signed it. Gayatri Sarkar posted a list of the board members' backgrounds under the line "No wonder Jensen got fired."
Deep dive
Early on November 14, Elon Musk replied to a post by Gayatri Sarkar that listed the credentials of Nvidia's directors, writing: "This is the board making decisions about what used to be the most valuable company on Earth!?" His reply drew more than 370,000 views within hours.
The Kobeissi Letter amplified the comment and listed the board as Harvey Jones, listed as chairman of Square Wave Ventures, Stephen Neal, Tench Coxe, John Dabiri of Caltech, Dawn Hudson, Melissa Lora, Brooke Seawell of New Enterprise Associates, Aarti Shah, Mark Stevens of S Cubed Capital and Suzanne Nora Johnson. Its list describes several of them as former executives at Cooley, Sutter Hill, the NFL, Taco Bell, Eli Lilly and Goldman Sachs.
About an hour later, the Kobeissi Letter reported that the open letter to reinstate Huang had passed 65,000 signatures, including more than 35,000 shareholders and 4,700 current and former Nvidia employees, and that it alleges Huang was removed "without meaningful due process." These signature counts come from the account's post and were not independently verified in the posts scanned.
Musk's remark is commentary rather than a new action by Nvidia. The board had not responded publicly to the letter or to Musk in the posts scanned.
What to expect next
Watch whether Nvidia's board answers the open letter or the criticism of its makeup before the company reports third quarter results on November 17. Signature counts on the letter are self reported by its organizers, so independent tallies would help. Any shareholder move to change the board, or a statement from Huang himself, would be the clearest sign the campaign is gaining real leverage.