It’s anyone’s guess who might permanently replace Jensen Huang after the Nvidia CEO resigned Thursday following sex scandals involving two women: a suspected spy for China and one of his own employees. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress will take the role in an interim capacity, but President Donald Trump chimed in with his two cents in a post to Truth Social on Thursday.
“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!” wrote Trump in his typical style with bizarre capitalization.
It’s unclear if Trump spoke with Cook before making the suggestion for all the world to see. The president often chimes in on the subject of the day as he watches TV.
Cook stepped down as the CEO of Apple in September, but he didn’t actually leave the company, instead pivoting to a role as Executive Chair. In Apple’s announcement about the departure, Cook was described as moving to a role where he’d be “engaging with policymakers around the world.” That, of course, is code for Chief Oligarch.
It’s no wonder that Trump wants Cook for the job at Nvidia. The former Apple CEO has been extremely chummy with the Trump regime ever since the president returned to power in early 2025. Cook even attended a private White House screening of the Amazon documentary Melania about the First Lady. He faced criticism for doing so because it was right in the middle of Trump’s brutal immigration crackdown and followed the killing of two Minneapolis residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, by federal immigration agents.
Cook taking on the role of CEO of Nvidia makes a lot of sense on paper, especially given the relationships he’s built in China. Commentators have described Huang as irreplaceable, focusing on his accomplishments as a tech visionary. But one unspoken reason he’s irreplaceable is that Huang was very effective at greasing the wheels of government, much like Cook.
Nvidia committed at least $26 million to Trump’s pet projects in Washington, including $25 million for the ballroom and $1 million for the president’s inaugural fund. Nvidia, like many other donors, had tried to keep the ballroom money anonymous, but it was revealed by the Washington Post about a year later.
Some of the names currently being floated for the top job at Nvidia include Vice President Ian Buck, OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor, CEO of Arm Holdings Rene Haas, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Apple’s Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, just to name a few.
The big question may be who among the names being floated can work best with President Trump and other world leaders while also being able to pivot when Trump inevitably leaves the White House. Schmidt might be the most interesting choice for that role from a political perspective, if only because he’s a longtime donor to Democrats who’s been willing to sit down with Trump in the past.
In that way, Schmidt might appear to be the perfect alternative to Tim Cook, if that’s what Trump wants. Cook criticized Trump in 2017 in a leaked private memo but ultimately was willing to work with him in a seemingly reluctant capacity until they became friends in oligarchy. It wouldn’t be hard to see Schmidt, who has deep ties to the military-industry complex, make a similar transformation.
The only thing that might hold Schmidt back, as TechCrunch points out, is his history of extramarital affairs.
