Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue expressed his sadness regarding the departure of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang this Thursday. Nvidia had announced its intention to acquire the open-source AI platform for $12.9 billion in September, marking the second-largest acquisition in the company's history, surpassed only by Groq's assets for $20 billion in December 2025.
Delangue took to X to share his thoughts, stating, "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!"
The post implies that Huang's exit may be concerning for open-source advocates, and Delangue is attempting to provide reassurance.
As Nvidia's CEO, Huang was a known advocate for open-source AI and open-weight models, raising potential concerns about how the company will navigate this space without his direct leadership.
Following the acquisition announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice initiated inquiries regarding the deal's impact on competition in the AI market. Although Nvidia pledged to maintain open support, the platform would allow the company to control a major distribution channel for AI models.
The Hugging Face transaction is currently scheduled to finalize in the first half of 2027. Requests for further comment on the deal's status and whether Hugging Face has engaged with Nvidia's interim CEO Collette Kress were not returned.
Huang's advocacy extends beyond Hugging Face. In July, he published an AI policy letter on X, signed by 25 companies including Microsoft, Meta, Hugging Face, and IBM. This letter urged the U.S. government to avoid over-restricting open-weight AI models, arguing that models accessible for download and modification are vital for the ecosystem because they enhance accessibility, adaptability, and availability.
Huang also emphasized that open-weight models expand economic access, strengthen competition, and provide customers with greater control over their infrastructure. "Open models strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty," he wrote on X.
In August, Nvidia announced a $6 billion deal with the coding startup Poolside to bolster an open AI ecosystem in the U.S. to compete against companies like DeepSeek and Kimi K3. Additionally, Nvidia expanded its Nemotron family with a large 120-billion-parameter model and two lightweight Bolt models.
Earlier this year, Huang promoted open-source AI during his keynote at CES in Las Vegas, highlighting that these models have "really revolutionized artificial intelligence."
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