Author: Ye Zhen, Wall Street Insights

The aftershocks of Jensen Huang's resignation as CEO of Nvidia are rapidly spreading through Silicon Valley, with prominent figures in the tech community, represented by Musk, actively intervening to try to bring this pivotal figure back to leadership.

In the early hours of today Beijing time, Musk publicly confirmed on social media that he is signing a petition requesting Jensen Huang's reinstatement. Meanwhile, the website hosting the petition (standwithjensen.com) is under server pressure due to a surge in traffic and has collected support from over 14,000 signatures.

Core engineers who previously worked at Nvidia have publicly stated that if the upper management fails to properly handle this transition, the company could face protests from key technical staff, which would directly impact Nvidia's business foundation.

In the eyes of the tech industry, forcibly stripping away an irreplaceable founding figure often comes with a significant cost. Several renowned investors and industry observers have compared this incident to historical lessons from Apple and Uber, warning of the potential impact on the company's long-term strategy.

Petition from thousands overwhelming servers

After Huang's departure, a grassroots movement to "defend the founder" quickly emerged on social media, and Musk's involvement has undoubtedly infused great momentum into this movement.

At 4:51 AM Beijing time, Musk made a clear statement in response to Tesla senior engineer Yun-Ta Tsai: "There is a petition underway to reinstate Jensen Huang, and I am signing it." This endorsement from a major figure instantly elevated the petition's visibility.

According to prominent investor Gavin Baker, the petition site calling for Jensen Huang's return is currently being overwhelmed by a massive influx of signatures, to the point that emergency server upgrades are necessary.

Page data shows that more than 12,000 people have participated in this joint effort.

To express support for Jensen Huang, Musk previously shared a classic line from the movie "AIR": "You will always be remembered, because some things are eternal," and affectionately included Jensen's name.

Key talent sounding the alarm for departures

For Nvidia, which relies on cutting-edge technology, potential unrest within the foundational technical team is a deeper concern than executive turnover.

Yun-Ta Tsai, a former member of Nvidia's core GPU design team and now a senior engineer at Tesla, has issued a passionate call. He pointed out that if employees want Jensen Huang to return, they should act in accordance with the principle that "without employees, there would be no Nvidia": resign, and take a break.

Yun-Ta Tsai emphasized the scarcity of hardware engineers at present. He stated that excellent GPU engineers are in such high demand in the market that they are even more sought after than machine learning engineers and are extremely hard to replace. He called on his peers to take control of their destinies, stating that "it is the engineers who shape and deliver the company's mission, not the board." As a former employee, he candidly remarked that Jensen Huang's strategic vision profoundly shaped today's Nvidia, suggesting that the founder's departure could lead to a collapse of team cohesion.

Silicon Valley's cautionary tales: irreplaceable founders

Jensen Huang's exit precisely strikes at Silicon Valley's most sensitive nerve regarding "founder culture." The market is beginning to worry whether tech giants without their defining figures will repeat historical mistakes.

Renowned investor Naval Ravikant referenced two of the most notorious painful cases in tech history to express skepticism: Apple's dismissal of Jobs and Uber's ousting of Kalanick.

Naval Ravikant sharply retorted, "Haven't we learned yet that you cannot simply replace a founder?" This viewpoint quickly resonated with Silicon Valley's core circles, and Musk succinctly and powerfully replied to this post with two words: "True words."