Nvidia’s CEO Exit Fuels Open‑Source AI Fight After Hugging Face Deal

Nvidia’s announcement to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion—its second‑largest purchase after Groq’s $20 billion deal—was followed by the sudden exit of CEO Jensen Huang. The move left the open‑source AI community uneasy, as Huang had championed open‑weight models and warned that such models keep the market competitive.

Clément Delangue, Hugging Face’s chief executive, reacted on X with a blunt note: “This whole thing sucks, and I wish none of it had happened. It’s a really sad day! But I want to make one thing clear: we’ll keep fighting for open‑source AI, harder than ever.” His words signal that the acquisition will not silence the platform’s open‑source mission.

The U.S. Department of Justice has already begun probing how the deal could affect competition, and Nvidia has pledged that the platform will preserve open support while gaining control over a major distribution channel for AI models. The transaction is still slated to close in the first half of 2027, and no comment has come from Hugging Face about talks with Nvidia’s interim CEO Collette Kress.

Huang’s advocacy extends beyond the deal.

In July he released an AI policy letter signed by 25 companies—including Microsoft, Meta, and Hugging Face—urging the government not to over‑restrict open‑weight models.

He argued that models anyone can download, inspect, modify, and run on their own infrastructure are vital for accessibility, adaptability, and widespread availability.

Our read: the acquisition could give Nvidia a powerful distribution arm, but Delangue’s pledge and the DOJ inquiry suggest that open‑source AI will still be a battleground.

Watch how Nvidia’s new leadership balances control with the community’s demand for open models, and whether the DOJ’s questions will reshape the deal’s outcome.