Hugging Face CEO vows to keep fighting for open-source AI after Huang exit

Hugging Face CEO responds to Huang's departure

Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's departure a "really sad day" and said the company would keep fighting for open-source AI.

"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. This is too important to slow down now. Let’s go!," Delangue wrote on X.

Huang resigned effective immediately on November 12, 2026, following a board investigation tied to personal conduct. Nvidia’s board named Colette Kress, the company’s chief financial officer, as interim CEO.

Pending acquisition and regulatory review

Nvidia announced on September 3, 2026, that it would acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027 and still needs regulatory approval.

The U.S. Department of Justice began making inquiries in October about how the deal would impact competition in the AI market, Reuters reported. Nvidia pledged that the platform would preserve open support, but it would also allow the company to control a major distribution channel for AI models.

Requests for further comment on the deal status and whether Hugging Face has spoken yet with Nvidia’s interim CEO Colette Kress were not returned.

Open-source commitments

Hugging Face hosts around three million models and more than 500,000 datasets. Its user base is serving roughly 18 to 20 million AI developers and users, and by early November 2026, Hugging Face had grown past 20 million AI builders.

Delangue has targeted empowering 100 million builders, which would mean a roughly fivefold expansion from where the platform stands today.

When the Nvidia deal was announced, Hugging Face’s leadership made commitments that the platform would stay open, independent, and compute-agnostic. Compute-agnostic means developers can run models on hardware from various providers, not only on Nvidia chips. Under the deal terms, Hugging Face’s founders and team are set to join Nvidia while continuing the platform’s mission.

Why it matters

• Huang was known as a strong advocate for open source AI and open-weight models.
• In July, Huang published an AI policy letter on X signed by 25 companies, including Microsoft, Meta, Hugging Face, IBM, and Palantir, urging the U.S. government not to over-restrict open-weight AI models.
• The letter said models that "anyone can download, inspect, modify, and run on their own infrastructure" are an important part of the AI ecosystem because they make AI "more accessible, adaptable, and widely available."
• In August, Nvidia announced a $6 billion deal with the coding startup Poolside to help build out an open AI ecosystem in the U.S.
• Last month, Nvidia expanded its Nemotron family of open-weight models with a large 120-billion-parameter model for agents used by the enterprise as well as with two new lightweight Bolt models that run on PCs.

Sources

• techcrunch.com: Hugging Face CEO vows to keep fighting for open source AI after Jensen Huang's exit | TechCrunch
• cryptobriefing.com: Hugging Face CEO vows to fight for open-source AI after Jensen Huang's resignation
• digitaltoday.co.kr: Hugging Face CEO calls Jensen Huang exit a sad day, vows to defend open-source AI

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.