Hugging Face CEO vows open-source push after Huang's exit

Clément Delangue, the CEO of Hugging Face, pledged to push harder on open-source AI after Jensen Huang's departure as Nvidia's chief, a handover that leaves the chipmaker's pending $12.9 billion acquisition of the platform in different hands. "This whole thing sucks, and I wish none of it had happened. It's a really sad day!" Delangue wrote on X, per TechCrunch. In a follow-on post he added that "we'll keep fighting for open-source AI, harder than ever. This is too important to slow down now."

The deal, announced in September, is Nvidia's second-largest acquisition ever, trailing only the $20 billion purchase of Groq's assets in December 2025. It is still expected to close in the first half of 2027.

Huang had been one of the most visible corporate advocates for open-weight AI. In July he published an AI policy letter as his first-ever post on X, co-signed by 25 companies including Microsoft, Meta, Hugging Face, IBM and Palantir, urging the U.S. government not to over-restrict open-weight models. The letter argued they "strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty." Nvidia also announced a $6 billion deal with coding startup Poolside in August to build an open AI ecosystem in the U.S.

Delangue's posts named no commitments from Huang's successor.