Trump Wants Tech Legend To Replace Jensen Huang At Nvidia

President Donald Trump has a pick for Nvidia’s next CEO: Tim Cook.

Jensen Huang quit as head of the chip giant Thursday amid two affair scandals, one of them reportedly involving a suspected Chinese spy. Hours later, Trump posted on Truth Social that Cook was the only man for the job.

“A Legend replaces a Legend!” the president wrote, and he also praised Huang for doing “a fantastic job.”

It isn’t clear whether Trump has run the idea past Cook. Cook gave up Apple’s top job on September 1 and is now the company’s executive chairman. Trump also has no say in who runs Nvidia. Its board named longtime CFO Colette Kress interim chief and is looking for a permanent replacement both inside and outside the company.

Nvidia stock fell 11% at the open after the news.

Huang fell fast. On Sunday he admitted to an affair with Alice Huang (no relation), a former executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore data center company that buys Nvidia chips. The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials had evidence she was passing information to Beijing, which has denied Alice Huang is a spy.

Huang apologized to Lori, his wife of four decades, saying “there is no excuse for what I did.” He promised to cooperate with the board’s investigation. Trump stood by him, saying Huang told him he had no idea the woman was a spy and that he believed him.

On Wednesday, the Times reported a second affair, with Nvidia’s healthcare chief, Kimberly Powell. The paper cited video of the two being affectionate outside a hotel during a company conference in March. That night, The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to push Huang out. He resigned Thursday morning.

Huang is also facing a proposed class-action lawsuit from a shareholder. The suit says he and Nvidia misled investors by not disclosing his relationship with Alice Huang.

Trump’s pick isn’t out of nowhere. He and Cook go back years, though they didn’t start out as friends.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump called for a boycott of Apple after the company refused to help the FBI unlock a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. Once he took office, though, Trump found that Cook was the rare tech boss who called him directly, and he loved it.

Cook still broke with Trump publicly over multiple issues, including the Muslim travel ban.

But the private line might be paying off.