A post claiming that “hundreds of NVIDIA employees” have signed an internal letter demanding Jensen Huang’s return as chief executive was shared widely on X on Friday. The letter shown in the post also demands the resignation of Nvidia’s board and threatens a mass move to “the SpaceX Terafab initiative under the leadership of Jensen Huang and Elon Musk”. The first names on its signature list belong to several of Nvidia’s best-known technical leaders. There is no evidence that this letter is real.
Its wording follows, almost line for line, the letter OpenAI employees sent to their own board in November 2023, after Sam Altman was removed as chief executive. The developer’s account that shared it has not said where the letter came from. About seven hours earlier, the same account had described this exact scenario as a way for Huang to win back his job “like Sam did with the OpenAI coup”. In that version, Musk offers Huang work at Terafab and jobs for Nvidia staff, employees threaten to follow him, and Huang returns to restructure the board.
A reader note now shown on the post says that no reports confirm a signed letter like the one in the image, but the letter has kept travelling. Several crypto and finance news sites republished it on Friday as an “alleged” petition, while noting that its authenticity had not been confirmed. TalkEsport has found no public comment on the letter from Nvidia itself.
Huang’s departure, unlike the letter, is a matter of record. Nvidia announced on 12 November that Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately, after 33 years in charge. Chief financial officer Colette Kress became interim chief executive, and former Synopsys chief executive Harvey Jones was named the company’s first board chair, according to Nvidia’s official announcement. TalkEsport is not repeating the names on the viral letter, because nothing shows that any of those executives signed it.
The viral letter borrows OpenAI’s 2023 wording almost line for line
Placed side by side, the two letters share their structure, their arguments and many of their sentences. Only the company names, the people and the rival employer have changed. The OpenAI letter, which was widely reported in November 2023, was eventually signed by 745 of the company’s 770 employees.
| OpenAI employees’ letter, November 2023 | Viral “Nvidia employees” letter, November 2026 |
|---|---|
| “OpenAI is the world’s leading AI company. We, the employees of OpenAI, have developed the best models…” | “NVIDIA is the world’s leading accelerated computing company. We, the employees of NVIDIA, have developed the world’s most advanced GPUs…” |
| “The process through which you terminated Sam Altman…” | “The process through which you terminated Jensen Huang…” |
| “Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI.” | “Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing NVIDIA.” |
| “Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees…” | “Elon Musk has assured us that there are positions for all NVIDIA employees…” |
Several details in the viral letter also clash with the public record. It says the board “terminated” Huang, while Nvidia’s announcement and its filing with US regulators say he resigned. It claims that Elon Musk has promised jobs to every Nvidia employee, but TalkEsport found no such statement from Musk or SpaceX. Musk’s only public remark about hiring Huang so far was that it “would be an honour”. Terafab itself is real, a chip factory costing about $20 billion that Tesla and SpaceX announced in March for Austin, Texas, but nothing shows that Huang has joined it.
The real employee pushback came through Nvidia’s internal suggestion box
There is genuine anger inside Nvidia, but it looks very different from the viral letter. According to internal messages reviewed by WIRED, a longtime Nvidia engineer submitted a post to the company’s internal suggestion box before Huang’s exit. It urged the board to share its findings and to seek employee views on whether Huang should stay as chief executive. The post has drawn more than 1,600 comments, many of them calling for Huang to get another chance.
“If you believe in the mission, bring back THE boss,” one anonymous comment read, according to the reports. Another employee sent a companywide email asking the board to explain its decision, and about two dozen Nvidia staff posted messages of support for Huang on LinkedIn after he resigned. None of those messages amounts to a signed demand, and none mentions SpaceX or Musk.
Loyalty to Huang inside Nvidia was already clear before he left. In a Blind survey published on 10 November, 88% of Nvidia staff who answered said he should remain chief executive, against 60% of all 1,689 professionals who responded. Only 1% of the Nvidia respondents said the board should remove him. The pressure on him grew afterwards, and sources have since alleged a third relationship, with a second Nvidia employee.
Why a copied letter found such a ready audience
The OpenAI letter is remembered because it worked. Altman was back as OpenAI’s chief executive within days of the November 2023 revolt, and most of the board that removed him was replaced. For anyone hoping for a similar outcome at Nvidia, a letter in the same words, with Musk in place of Microsoft, was an easy thing to believe and to share.
Nvidia’s situation is also very different from OpenAI’s. Huang left during an investigation into his conduct, led by former federal prosecutor Joon Kim and the law firm Wachtell Lipton, and Nvidia describes his exit as a resignation. The board has said it is searching for a permanent successor and “will consider internal and external candidates”, and Kress has said her focus is on customers, partners and shareholders. Nvidia reports its third-quarter results on 17 November, its first under an interim chief executive.
