Trump Pushes Tim Cook to Succeed Jensen Huang as Nvidia CEO

Jensen Huang resigned as CEO of Nvidia this morning, and President Donald Trump already has a successor in mind: former Apple chief executive Tim Cook. Nvidia, the dominant supplier of the graphics processors (GPUs) that power most of the world's artificial intelligence training, is now led on an interim basis by its chief financial officer while the company searches for a permanent replacement for one of the most consequential executives in the technology industry.

Trump made his endorsement public within hours of the resignation. On Truth Social, he wrote: "NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place - TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!"

The stakes are considerable. Nvidia sits at the center of the AI hardware market, and the identity of its next chief executive will shape how the most valuable chip supplier in the industry navigates export controls, competition, and the enormous capital spending now flowing into AI infrastructure. A leadership vacancy triggered by personal scandal, rather than strategy or performance, adds an unusual layer of instability to that picture.

Who does Trump want running Nvidia?

Tim Cook, and by Trump's account, nobody else comes close. The president repeated his pitch on a new episode of Stephen A. Smith's Straight Shooter podcast published today, where he argued that Apple's growth under Cook outstripped what Steve Jobs alone would have delivered.

"Can [Huang] be replaced?" Trump said on the podcast. "Well, you know, the expression, Anybody can be replaced? So it's very hard to replace him, but I had an idea this morning that I sort of just released: Tim Cook. He just sort of semi-retired from Apple. He's done one of the greatest jobs in the history of business."

Trump went further in his comparison of Cook to Apple's co-founder. "I think if Tim Cook, who built Apple… If Steve Jobs were around, Apple would never be what it is today," Trump said. "Tim Cook took a lot of these brilliant ideas and designs and everything else from Jobs and others, and he made it into one of the great companies of the world in a fairly short period. I think Tim Cook would be a great candidate to run Nvidia."

The timing makes the suggestion at least superficially plausible. Cook stepped down as Apple's CEO on September 1st and moved into an executive chairman role, a transition he had announced earlier this year. He is, in Trump's phrasing, "semi-retired" from running the company he led for well over a decade.

Whether Cook has any interest in the Nvidia job is another matter entirely. Neither Apple nor Nvidia immediately replied to a request for comment.

Why did Huang resign?

The resignation followed reports of affairs, including one with an alleged Chinese spy. That detail, and the unresolved question of whether the woman was in fact an intelligence operative, is central to how Trump framed the situation on the podcast.

"Should [Huang] have stepped down?" Trump was asked. His answer hinged on the espionage question. "Well, the big thing is, was the woman a spy, and I don't know if that's been determined yet, but if the woman was a spy, yes, if the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different," Trump said.

The national security dimension is not incidental. Nvidia's chips are treated by the U.S. government as strategic assets, subject to export restrictions aimed at limiting China's access to advanced AI hardware. A chief executive's personal entanglement with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative would raise obvious counterintelligence concerns at a company so deeply embedded in American technology policy.

Trump, who has known Huang for years, offered a personal account of the fallen executive's state of mind. "But I can tell you this. Somehow, he'll end up on his feet. I mean, I know him, I know him pretty well. I always thought of him as a fine man," Trump said.

The president said the two spoke the day before the resignation became public. "I spoke to him yesterday. He's going through hell," Trump said. "What he feels most badly about is his wife and family. That's what he is, really… that's what he told me. I'm president, and he called me. And he said, What I've done to my wife and family is... That's what he talked about."

On the podcast, Trump called Huang a "tremendous talent." Other tech leaders have also publicly supported Huang following his resignation.

How close are Trump and Cook?

The Cook endorsement did not emerge from a vacuum. Cook is well known for maintaining a direct relationship with Trump, one of the few major technology executives to do so consistently through changing administrations.

The relationship has produced memorable moments. Cook gifted Trump a 24k gold and glass statue last year. After Cook announced his transition plan earlier this year, Trump posted a story about having "the head of Apple calling to 'kiss my ass.'"

That history gives Trump's public lobbying for Cook a personal dimension that is unusual in CEO succession matters. Presidential endorsements of corporate leadership candidates are rare; repeated ones, across both a social media post and a podcast appearance on the same day, are rarer still.

What happens next at Nvidia?

For now, the CFO runs the company on an interim basis, and no formal search outcome has been announced. Trump has no formal role in appointing Nvidia's chief executive — that decision belongs to the company's board — but his public preference for Cook inserts the White House directly into one of the most closely watched successions in the technology sector.

Apple and Nvidia have not responded to requests for comment. Whether Cook entertains the idea, or the Nvidia board even considers it, will shape the leadership of the company at the heart of the AI hardware supply chain. Huang's stated priority, according to Trump, is his wife and family; the chipmaker's priority is finding someone to fill a seat that its departing "tremendous talent" built into the most powerful position in the industry.