'Stand with Jensen' petition passes 115,000 signatures as Musk and tech chiefs back Huang's return
A petition calling on Nvidia's board to reinstate Jensen Huang passed 115,000 signatures by Saturday afternoon, TechCrunch reported. The campaign site lists 5,965 current Nvidia employees, 1,108 former employees and 63,063 shareholders — all self-reported and unverified — with named supporters including Elon Musk, Epic's Tim Sweeney, Replit's Amjad Masad and YC's Garry Tan.
The News
A petition calling on Nvidia's board to reinstate Jensen Huang passed 115,000 signatures by Saturday afternoon, November 14, TechCrunch reported at 1:41 p.m. PST. The petition, called 'Stand with Jensen,' asks the board to 'bring him back while an independent investigation establishes the facts.'
A petition is not a vote. It is a public list of names asking a decision-maker to do something, and the board is free to ignore it. What the campaign asks for is narrow: it wants Huang brought back while an independent investigation establishes the facts, not a verdict on the investigation itself. The count also grew fast — other outlets reported more than 100,000 signatures by Saturday morning, and TechCrunch's 115,000 figure came in the early afternoon — which is why the campaign is being treated as a real show of feeling rather than a fringe effort.
The campaign site lists 5,965 current Nvidia employees, 1,108 former employees and 63,063 shareholders among the signers — but all of those counts are self-reported by the campaign and unverified, and they should be read that way. Named supporters include Elon Musk, Epic Games chief executive Tim Sweeney, Replit chief executive Amjad Masad and Y Combinator president Garry Tan.
Separately, an internal Nvidia suggestion-box post submitted before the resignation, asking the board to weigh employee sentiment, drew more than 1,600 comments, mostly supportive, according to Wired on November 13. The board has not responded to the petition. A separate fake 'executive letter' demanding the board resign circulated on Friday and was called 'clearly fake' by Nvidia vice-president Bryan Catanzaro in an X post on November 13, as reported by Wccftech. A different Change.org petition, 'Bring Jensen Huang back as Nvidia CEO,' showed 2,039 signatures when checked on November 14, so more than one petition appears to exist — the figures in this story are TechCrunch's, as attributed.
115,000 signatures is a loud campaign — but the board's decision has to wait for the facts, not the petition.
Why It Matters
The petition matters because it shows how fast the campaign to bring Huang back has organised — 115,000 signatures in days, with some of the technology industry's most prominent names attached. Musk's support in particular gives the campaign reach far beyond Nvidia's own workforce, and the suggestion-box post with 1,600-plus comments suggests the sentiment is real inside the company as well as outside it.
But the numbers need to be handled carefully. The employee and shareholder counts are self-reported by the campaign, not verified by Nvidia or by any independent count, and the existence of a separate petition with only about 2,039 signatures shows how easy it is for online totals to mislead. A petition measures enthusiasm, not a vote — the board owes its duty to all shareholders, not to the loudest ones.
The board has not responded, and it has good reason to wait. The investigation is still open, the Reuters reporting about Huang misleading company leaders is still fresh, and the board is still only picking a search firm for a permanent chief executive. A petition can change the politics of a decision; it cannot change the facts the board has to decide on.
The names matter as much as the number. Musk, Sweeney, Masad and Tan are prominent figures in the technology world, and their backing gives the petition reach and credibility that a list of anonymous names would not have. But names do not change the board's job: it must weigh the findings of the investigation, not the fame of the signers, and the petition's own figures are self-reported and unverified.
Analyst's Take
Our call is Mixed. The petition is a real show of support — 115,000 signatures and the backing of Musk, Sweeney, Masad and Tan is not nothing — but it is also self-reported, unverified and non-binding, and it arrives as new reporting makes the case for a return harder, not easier. The board's silence is the correct response for now: the decision has to wait for the facts.
What to watch: whether the signature count keeps climbing, whether any large shareholder publicly backs the petition, and whether the board acknowledges it at all. The more useful signal will be Tuesday's earnings call, where Kress has to show the company can run without its founder.
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By The Numbers
FAQ
Who started the 'Stand with Jensen' petition?
The petition is a campaign calling on Nvidia's board to reinstate Jensen Huang. TechCrunch reported it passed 115,000 signatures by Saturday afternoon, November 14. Named supporters include Elon Musk, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney, Replit's Amjad Masad and Y Combinator's Garry Tan.
Are the employee and shareholder counts verified?
No. The figures — 5,965 current employees, 1,108 former employees and 63,063 shareholders — are self-reported by the campaign and unverified. A separate Change.org page showed only about 2,039 signatures, so more than one petition appears to exist.
Has the board responded?
No. Nvidia's board has not responded to the petition. It has also said it is still in the process of selecting a search firm for the permanent chief executive role and has not formally engaged any candidates.
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Source: TechCrunch