Nvidia approached Arm CEO Haas to succeed Huang, FT reports

Why This Matters

Key context: <p>Nvidia’s board has approached British chipmaker Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas in its search for a potential successor to Jensen Huang, the <em>Financial Times</em> reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.</p> <p>Huang <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/2044060/jensen-huang-steps-down-as-nvidia-ceo-after-reports-of-extramarital-affairs">stepped down</a> on Thursday after revelations of extramarital affairs, including one involving a suspected Chinese spy, plunging the chipmaker into crisis and sending shockwaves across an AI industry he helped bankroll.</p> <p>Haas’ name has been making the rounds among analysts since Huang’s exit. He spent seven formative years at Nvidia, rising to vice president and general manager of its computing products business, before joining Arm in 2013.</p> <p>He is among several candidates being considered, and there is no guarantee he will be offered the job or accept it, the <em>FT</em> reported. Nvidia’s finance chief Colette Kress is the interim CEO.</p> <p>Arm declined to comment, while Nvidia did not immediately respond to a <em>Reuters</em> request for comment. <em>Reuters</em> could not independently verify the report.</p> <p>Haas became Arm CEO in 2022, overseeing the company’s Nasdaq listing in 2023. Arm designs processor architectures and licenses them to other companies that develop chip designs. Historically, its strength has been in mobile phones, and it is expanding into computers.</p> <p>Arm’s US-listed shares pared losses after the report and were down more than 5 per cent. Nvidia’s shares were down over 3pc.</p> <h1><a id="us-treasury-chief-blames-commerce-dept-for-failure-in-nvidia-scandal" href="#us-treasury-chief-blames-commerce-dept-for-failure-in-nvidia-scandal" class="heading-permalink" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" title="Permalink"></a><strong>US Treasury chief blames Commerce Dept for failure in Nvidia scandal</strong></h1> <p>Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday blamed the Commerce Department for failing to blacklist Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the centre of the Nvidia scandal.</p> <p>Speaking on <em>CNBC</em>, Bessent said Treasury, the Defence Department, the US Trade Representative’s office and the State Department had backed adding Megaspeed to Washington’s trade blacklist, “for months”.</p> <p>“But Commerce has the pen,” Bessent said. “You will have to ask them about their internal processes.”</p> <figure class='media w-full w-full media-- media--embed media--uneven media--tweet' data-original-src='https://x.com/CNBC/status/2121246355301495159'> <div class='media__item media__item--twitter '><span> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <a href="https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/2121246355301495159"></a> </blockquote> </span></div> </figure> <p>He said he was “frustrated” because President Donald Trump “made it very clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s”.</p> <p>“Any leakage is very frustrating because it hurts our great companies, and in the AI race gives the Chinese an advantage,” he said.</p> <p>The remarks are a rare public rebuke of one cabinet department by another. Commerce is led by Secretary Howard Lutnick.</p> <p>Megaspeed is suspected of helping Chinese firms get around US export controls by buying Nvidia chips for its data centres in Southeast Asia and routing them to China. The company reportedly traded more than $4 billion worth of Nvidia chips over two years.</p> <p>Its former director Alice Huang was this week <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/2043502">identified</a> in US media as an alleged Chinese intelligence asset who had a relationship with Jensen Huang. The two are not related. Beijing has denied the spying allegations.</p> <p>Jensen Huang acknowledged an <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/2043245/nvidia-probes-whether-ceo-huang-was-target-of-foreign-spying-as-he-admits-affair">extramarital affair</a> in a November 8 letter to Nvidia employees that did not name the woman involved and resigned his position on Thursday. Nvidia’s board has said it will investigate, and three US Congress committee chairs have asked him to attend a closed-door briefing on November 18.</p> <p>Bessent said coverage of the affair had focused too much on Huang’s private life.</p> <figure class='media w-full w-full media-- media--embed media--uneven media--tweet' data-original-src='https://x.com/CNBC/status/2121233847949922347'> <div class='media__item media__item--twitter '><span> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <a href="https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/2121233847949922347"></a> </blockquote> </span></div> </figure> <p>“The story thus far has been on Jensen Huang’s personal foibles,” he said. “The real story here should be: Did Nvidia know their client, and was there a robust effort at Nvidia to make sure that there was no leakage?”</p> <p>He questioned whether Nvidia had been selling to “what were obviously pass-through shell companies”.</p> <p>“I think it’s important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that,” Bessent said, adding that there was “a lot of leakage in the system” and that the administration was “constantly working to close that down”.</p> This development from dawn.com highlights ongoing changes in the sector.