Politico reveals Huang's chances of 'returning to power' after sacking

Silicon Valley is discussing Jensen Huang's return to "power" at tech companies after his departure from Nvidia amid the scandal. Five sources in the tech industry told Politico they expect this to happen. Three others were less certain, but said they would not be surprised if he returned.

Huang has already been defended by the founder of the defense technology company Anduril, Palmer Luckey, and the head of Perplexity AI, Aravind Srinivas. Elon Musk also said he would be honored to hire Huang.

The head of a California startup, who spoke to Politico anonymously, called a new phase of Huang’s career inevitable. “Given all the value it has created and its universally recognized role as the godfather of AI, it will inevitably have a second act.” And a variety of large cloud companies and startups will vying to contact him and bring him to work, despite any misconduct, the source said.

According to some sources, Huang retains a fortune of about $ 145 billion, connections with influential people and an entrepreneurial reputation within the industry. According to Joseph Hefer, director of AI at lobbying firm Monument Advocacy, the loss of position “should not be confused” with the loss of ability to influence the future development of the industry.

The three people said it would be easier for Huang to start a new business on his own than to join an existing company. Scott Gerber, a partner at technology consulting firm Vrge, explained that the connection to the spy scandal would complicate his appointment to a senior position at any public company.

Democratic Congressman Jim Hymes told Politico that after briefings by U.S. intelligence agencies, he is not sure that the woman with whom Huang is connected knowingly passed information to China. Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s AI adviser and venture capitalist David Sachs also drew attention to reports of doubts within the intelligence community and said the espionage narrative was beginning to crumble.

Restoring Huanggu’s influence in Washington may be harder than returning to the tech industry. For example, he sought to ease restrictions on the export of advanced US chips to China, but the US authorities question his position. Philip Reiner, head of the Institute for Security and Technology, a think tank and former senior director of the National Security Council, said Huang’s reputation in the industry could be restored over time, but it would be extremely difficult to regain credibility on Chinese policy.

Huang founded Nvidia in 1993 with Chris Malachowski and Curtis Reception. Initial investments of partners amounted to $ 40 thousand. The company began with graphics solutions, and in 2006 created the CUDA platform, which allowed the use of graphics cards for calculations outside of computer games. Nvidia supplied equipment to universities and developed tools for researchers. In 2012, two of its graphics cards were used to create a neural network AlexNet, and in 2016, the company transferred OpenAI specialized server for AI.

Against the background of demand for equipment for neural networks, Nvidia became the most expensive public company in the world for the first time in June 2024, overtaking Microsoft. In October 2025, it was the first to reach a capitalization of $ 5 trillion. Huang was on Time’s list of the hundred most influential people in the world, and the Financial Times chose him as the person of 2025.

On November 12, Huang resigned as president, CEO and board member of Nvidia following reports of an extramarital relationship. One of the women is businesswoman Alice Huang, associated with Megaspeed, which buys Nvidia chips. US intelligence agencies suspect her of cooperating with Chinese intelligence. Beijing denies the accusations. Huang agreed to provide Congress with information about his relationship with her and the company's security protocols.