Hugging Face CEO vows to fight for open-source AI after Jensen Huang’s resignation

Clément Delangue did not reach for corporate polish. Hours after Jensen Huang stepped down as Nvidia’s CEO, the Hugging Face chief said the situation was painful and that his company’s commitment to open-source AI would not waver.

The timing is awkward. Nvidia is in the middle of acquiring Hugging Face, and the executive who led the company into that deal is no longer at the helm.

“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.”

That is the kind of statement CEOs usually save for internal Slack channels. Delangue said it publicly.

What happened at Nvidia

Huang resigned effective immediately on November 12, 2026. His departure followed a board investigation tied to personal conduct.

Nvidia’s board named Colette Kress, the company’s chief financial officer, as interim CEO.

That acquisition is Hugging Face. Nvidia announced the deal on September 3, 2026, valuing the open-source AI platform at $12.93 billion.

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027. It still needs regulatory approval, so the paperwork is far from finished.

Why Hugging Face matters

For anyone outside the AI developer world, Hugging Face works like a giant public library for machine learning. Developers upload models and datasets there, and others download, test, and build on them.

The scale is substantial. The platform 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. By early November 2026, Hugging Face had grown past 20 million AI builders.

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

The open-source promise

When the Nvidia deal was announced, Hugging Face’s leadership made specific commitments. The platform would stay open, independent, and compute-agnostic.

Compute-agnostic is the phrase that matters most here. It 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.

Now one side of that leadership has changed. Delangue’s statement reads as an effort to reassure developers that the mission does not depend on who sits in Nvidia’s corner office.

What this means for the deal and the AI ecosystem

The most immediate question is whether the acquisition proceeds as planned. Nothing in the available information suggests the deal has been altered or called off, and the expected close window remains the first half of 2027.

For now, the things to watch are clear. First, any statement from Kress or Nvidia’s board about the Hugging Face transaction. Second, whether the deal stays on track for its first-half 2027 close. Third, whether Hugging Face’s growth toward Delangue’s 100 million builder target continues while the corporate turbulence plays out.

Delangue has made his position public and unambiguous. The open-source AI community now has a quote to hold him, and eventually Nvidia, to.