SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - When it comes to the next CEO of Nvidia, Donald Trump is thinking outside the box.
After the AI chip company's board parted ways with chief Jensen Huang, the US president said on social media on Thursday, "There is only one man to take his place - TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!"
The hunt is on for a permanent successor, and the board is open to insider and outsider candidates, Nvidia said.
Analysts and investors want someone who understands the tech,
has vision and possesses acumen in finance, since the company has been a major investor in the AI boom, as well as a manufacturer. Experience running a massive company is a likely requirement.
Nvidia's Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, who was named interim CEO, and uber-engineer Ian Buck bring expertise in the two areas that investors value most: the company's money matters and its technology.
Traders on prediction market website Polymarket favored Buck as most likely to become the next CEO, followed by Kress, Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas and Cook.
Here are some names discussed by chip watchers:
COLETTE KRESS, NVIDIA CFO
Veteran Kress was named interim CEO on Thursday, and her experience, authority and deep relationship with Wall Street make her a good choice to steer the company through crisis, analysts and investors have said.
Kress has been Nvidia's CFO since 2013. Before that, she had a long career at major tech companies including Microsoft, Cisco and chip company Texas Instruments. A big question would be who fills the role of tech visionary if she runs the company.
IAN BUCK, NVIDIA VICE PRESIDENT OF HYPERSCALE AND HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING
Buck, who joined in 2004, was a leader in developing the technology that turned Nvidia from a company focused on video game chips into the biggest force in AI hardware. He did that by helping lead development of CUDA, the software platform that enabled general-purpose computing on Nvidia’s graphics processors. Buck also works closely with big customers as manager of Nvidia AI hardware and software products.
Investors will want a visionary who can see what's next, a key part of Buck's mandate. “One of the most challenging parts of my job often is to try to predict the future, but AI is always surprising us,” Buck said at a Bank of America conference last year.
RENE HAAS, CEO OF ARM
Arm CEO Rene Haas spent seven formative years at Nvidia, rising to vice president and general manager of its computing products business, before joining Arm in 2013. He became CEO in 2022, overseeing the British chipmaker's Nasdaq listing in 2023.
In April, he also took over the reins of parent SoftBank's international business and is a board member of SoftBank Group.
Arm designs processor architectures and licenses them to other companies that then develop individual chip designs. Historically its strengths have been in mobile phones, and it is expanding into computers. That gives it a lot of overlap with Nvidia, which also is a chip designer, although Arm is much smaller in revenue and employee count.
PAT GELSINGER, FORMER INTEL CEO
Pat Gelsinger led an ambitious effort to turn around Intel, but he left the chipmaker in 2024 after fewer than four years, as the changes struggled to gain traction.
Still, Gelsinger is one of a handful of people in the world who know what it's like to run a chip company, and he knows both design and manufacturing, since Intel does both. Nvidia does not make its own chips, but its success depends on tight relations with its manufacturers.
Gelsinger started his career at Intel at 18 and spent 30 years at the company, rising to become its first chief technology officer, before running Broadcom's VMware for nearly a decade. He returned as Intel CEO in 2021.
LISA SU, AMD CEO
Lisa Su leads one of Nvidia's top rivals, AMD . If she replaced Huang, the move would represent a major disruption for AMD and a shift felt across the industry.
Su and Huang were both born in Taiwan, and they have claimed each other as a distant relative.
But she is known for a vastly different, less flashy style from Huang, who often drew crowds during his forays to Asia. Her quieter approach has won her allies in the key China market, where she has scored meetings with China's commerce minister and Vice Premier He Lifeng.
As US export controls led to a cratering of Nvidia's market share in China, AMD under Su still found avenues into the country, including with central processing units (CPUs) and consumer graphics processing units (GPUs). These helped it attain a 4% share of China's AI chip market.
SANJAY MEHROTRA, MICRON CEO
Sanjay Mehrotra, chief executive of memory chip maker Micron , has over four decades of experience and has worked closely with Nvidia, which uses Micron products.
Mehrotra has led the largest US memory chipmaker since 2017 and helped drive its transformation into a key supplier for AI systems. Before joining Micron, Mehrotra co-founded flash-memory pioneer Sandisk in 1988 and remained with the company until its 2016 sale. He served as chief executive from 2011, helping build Sandisk into a Fortune 500 semiconductor company.
Under Mehrotra, Micron has deepened ties with Nvidia and pivoted toward high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI servers. The shift helped propel the company to a roughly $1 trillion valuation as demand for AI infrastructure surged.
MATT MURPHY, MARVELL TECHNOLOGY CEO
Matt Murphy, chief executive of custom chipmaker Marvell Technology, has emerged as a prominent figure in the AI infrastructure boom, working closely with Nvidia while helping cloud giants develop custom chips intended to reduce reliance on Nvidia processors.
Murphy has led Marvell since 2016, transforming the company from a storage-focused chipmaker into a major supplier of data-center, networking and AI infrastructure technology. Before joining Marvell, he spent more than 20 years at Maxim Integrated in various roles.
Under Murphy, Marvell has become one of the biggest winners of the AI boom. It has expanded its custom-chip business, won major cloud customers and strengthened ties with Nvidia. Huang called Marvell the next "trillion-dollar company" in June, helping send its shares to a record high.
JOHNY SROUJI, APPLE CHIEF HARDWARE OFFICER
Johny Srouji oversees engineering of all hardware at the only company worth more than Nvidia — Apple. His remit includes microchips, cellular modems, displays, cameras and batteries inside its devices, and he reports to CEO John Ternus, who succeeded Tim Cook in September.
Srouji helped turn Apple into a chip powerhouse that designs its own processors. He joined Apple in 2008 to lead development of the main processor for the iPhone. That work grew into Apple Silicon, the chips Apple designs in-house for its devices. Apple and Nvidia both work with TSMC, the Taiwanese company that makes chips the California companies design, giving Srouji visibility into a key Nvidia partnership.
Before Apple, Srouji held senior processor design roles at Intel and IBM. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
TIM COOK, FORMER APPLE CEO
Maybe Trump is right? Tim Cook succeeded in the difficult task of leading Apple after co-founder Steve Jobs died in 2011, so picking up the reins from a legend is on his resume.
Over a 15-year stint as CEO, he took the company to a massive $4.5 trillion market capitalization from $350 billion. Apple today is the only company worth more than Nvidia.
He won plaudits for design of such hit products as the Apple Watch and AirPods and also built the company's services-related business, which became a huge source of revenue.
Cook doubled down on using China as Apple's main manufacturing base, which delivered massive efficiency gains but exposed the company to risks, especially as Trump hiked tariffs. He also cultivated Trump, staying in regular touch with him by phone and joining private dinners with the president and others.
Cook remains executive chairman of the board. He travels globally, promoting Apple's interests, including a trip to China in October, his third visit of the year.
(Reporting by Christian Plumb, Jo Mason, Anhata Rooprai and Peter Henderson; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
