Ian Buck Leads Betting to Succeed Jensen Huang as Nvidia Chief Executive
Ian Buck is emerging as the leading candidate to become Nvidia’s next chief executive. Buck is an executive who has worked at Nvidia for more than 22 years and helped create the CUDA computing platform.
Prediction market Kalshi put Buck’s chance of becoming the next chief executive at 42% as of 5:53 p.m. on Nov. 12. Interim Chief Executive Colette Kress stood at 13%. On another prediction market, Polymarket, Buck led with 29% and Kress was close behind at about 28%, while Arm Chief Executive Rene Haas followed at 6%.
Buck has served as vice president and general manager for nearly 14 years and now leads the hyperscale business. Hyperscale refers to the large-scale AI systems used by major cloud companies. CUDA is the software platform that keeps developers tied to Nvidia’s chips, and Buck is known as one of its creators.
Kress, 59, has served as chief financial officer since September 2013 and became interim chief executive when Huang resigned on Nov. 12. She appeared alongside Huang at earnings presentations and is the executive most familiar to investors.
The board is considering internal and external candidates. Bloomberg reported that the board is working with an outside firm to find a successor. Huang led the company for 33 years without naming a successor, and there was no formal succession plan.
Names mentioned from outside include Arm Chief Executive Rene Haas and Apple hardware chief Johny Srouji. Haas once led Nvidia’s computing products business. Other names in discussion include internal executives Bryan Catanzaro and Jay Puri, along with Huang’s daughter Madison Huang and son Spencer Huang.
President Donald Trump wrote on social media on Nov. 12 that Tim Cook should become the successor. There is no indication that Nvidia has chosen Cook.
Prediction markets are not the board’s decision, however. Markets have been wrong many times before, and it is unknown when a new chief executive will be named. It could be tomorrow, or it could take months. Analysts at StoneX called Buck the strongest internal candidate while noting that he has yet to prove himself as a leader of the entire company.
Huang resigned on Nov. 12, and the board accepted his resignation the night before. Kress is serving as interim chief executive, and Nvidia reports earnings on Nov. 17. Investors will be watching the earnings report along with news of the succession.
