Elon Musk said on Friday, November 13, 2026, that a petition to reinstate Jensen Huang as Nvidia's chief executive is underway and that he is signing it. He didn't say which petition, and nobody has confirmed that he signed one.
There are at least three things he could mean: a public Change.org petition, an internal Nvidia post with more than 1,600 employee comments, and a letter circulating on social media that nobody has authenticated.
None of them has any formal power. Huang's official biography credits him with founding Nvidia in 1993, but the board that accepted his resignation has already named an interim CEO and started a search. This piece explains what Musk said, what each petition is, and what would have to happen for one to matter.
Key takeaways
- Musk's exact words were "A petition is underway to reinstate Jensen, and I'm signing it too." He named no petition and attached no link.
- The public petition is small but growing fast. One outlet counted 170 signatures on Friday evening. The Change.org page showed 2,039 when checked on November 14.
- The employee campaign is not a petition. It's an internal suggestion-box post with more than 1,600 comments, according to WIRED reporting relayed by other outlets.
- Nothing here binds the board. The Change.org petition calls itself "independent, voluntary, nonbinding," and only Nvidia's directors can appoint a CEO.
- Nvidia hasn't responded. The company has announced no plan to reverse the resignation, and its chair has publicly backed the interim CEO.
- The obstacles are larger than the petitions. A board investigation is still open, and Huang is due to face Congress in early December.
What did Elon Musk say about Jensen Huang?
Elon Musk said he is signing a petition to bring Jensen Huang back. That's the whole statement, and it came as a reply to someone else's post on X.
TechStartups, which embedded the post, reports that Musk wrote it on Friday afternoon, November 13, and quotes it in full:
A petition is underway to reinstate Jensen, and I'm signing it too.
An early screenshot showed the post at 739,000 views and 39,000 likes, the same outlet says.
What he was replying to
Musk was answering Yun-Ta Tsai, whom Clash Report describes as a Tesla senior staff engineer. Tsai had argued that Nvidia employees who want Huang back should use their leverage, writing:
If NVIDIA employees want Jensen back, they should start with 'NVIDIA is nothing without its people' – resign and chill.
AOL, carrying a SoapCentral report, adds a second line from Tsai: "They shape and deliver the company mission, not the boards."
So the exchange was about employee power. Tsai said staff should threaten to walk. Musk's reply shifted the frame to a petition.
What Musk said earlier in the week
This wasn't Musk's first comment. On November 12, after The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to remove Huang, an account on X suggested Musk hire him. According to AOL, Musk replied "That would be an honor" and also agreed with investor Shaun Maguire, who had called Huang "one of the greatest entrepreneurs of this generation."
Said versus did
The gap between what Musk said and what he did is the first thing to get right.
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| Musk said a petition is underway | Confirmed by multiple outlets quoting the post |
| Musk said he is signing it | Confirmed; "I'm signing it too" |
| Musk named a specific petition | No. He gave no name and no link |
| Musk has signed a petition | Unconfirmed. Clash Report found "no immediate confirmation" |
| Nvidia has responded to Musk | No |
Some headlines say Musk "signed." The reporting behind them doesn't support that yet.
Which petition to reinstate Jensen Huang is Musk talking about?
Nobody knows which petition to reinstate Jensen Huang he meant, because he didn't say. Clash Report notes that Musk did not refer to the Change.org petition, the internal post, or the circulating letter by name.
Three candidates exist, and they are very different things.
| Change.org petition | Internal Nvidia post | Circulating letter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A public online petition | A post in an internal employee suggestion box | A letter shared on social media |
| Who started it | Mohamed Adany, a self-described Nvidia shareholder | A longtime Nvidia engineer | Unknown |
| When | November 12, 2026 | Before Huang resigned | After the resignation |
| Support | 2,039 signatures as of November 14 | More than 1,600 comments | Claims hundreds of employees |
| Verified? | Signatures are, share ownership is not | Reported by WIRED from internal correspondence | No |
| Can outsiders sign? | Yes | No | Unclear |
Only the first is something Musk could sign. He doesn't work at Nvidia, so the internal post is closed to him.
That makes the Change.org petition the likeliest candidate. It is still a guess.
What is the Change.org petition?
The Change.org petition is a public, nonbinding request that Nvidia's board offer Jensen Huang his job back. It was created the day Nvidia announced his resignation.
Its page is titled Bring Jensen Huang back as Nvidia CEO and lists Mohamed Adany, who describes himself as an Nvidia shareholder, as the organizer.
What it asks for
The ask is modest. The petition invites the board to offer Huang the chance to return, "subject to his agreement and the board's independent judgment." It doesn't demand anything, and it doesn't claim Huang wants to come back.
What it says about itself
The petition is unusually careful about its own limits. Its disclaimers include:
This is an independent, voluntary, nonbinding petition.
It also states that it is "not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Nvidia Corporation or Jensen Huang," and that signing "does not constitute an official shareholder vote, proxy solicitation, authorization to vote shares, or investment recommendation."
One more line matters: "Share ownership is not verified." A signature shows that a person clicked, not that an investor did.
How fast it's growing
The numbers moved quickly after Musk's post.
- Friday evening, November 13: 170 verified signatures, according to Clash Report.
- November 14: 2,039 verified signatures on the petition page, which also showed 157 people signing that day.
That's roughly a twelvefold increase in under a day. Neither count carries an exact timestamp, so treat the pace as approximate.
For scale, it's still tiny. Nvidia is one of the most widely held stocks in the world, and a petition with two thousand unverified signatures says little about what shareholders as a group want.
What are Nvidia employees asking for?
Nvidia employees are asking the board to do two things: share what its investigation finds, and formally ask staff whether Huang should stay. They made that request before he resigned.
The account comes from WIRED, which reviewed internal correspondence. WIRED itself couldn't be read for this article, so the details below are as relayed by other outlets.
The suggestion-box post
A Decrypt report carried by Yahoo Finance says the post was submitted by a longtime engineer before Huang's resignation and has since drawn more than 1,600 comments. It asked the board to share the findings of its investigation with staff and to formally seek their views.
Most of the visible comments favor his return. Two are quoted across the coverage:
- "If you believe in the mission, bring back THE boss," from an anonymous commenter.
- "Nvidia is Nvidia because of Jensen," from one worker speaking to WIRED.
One employee also sent a companywide email reading "I stand by Jensen."
Support outside the company's walls
The same report says about two dozen Nvidia employees posted supportive messages on LinkedIn in the hours after the announcement. WIRED said it could not find any employee posts backing his departure.
That last point cuts both ways. It may mean support is broad. It may also mean employees who disagree aren't saying so in public.
Why 1,600 comments is not 1,600 signatures
A second report on Yahoo Finance, from Gadget Review, makes the distinction plainly, saying that the figure reflects comments on an internal suggestion-box post and "not signatures on a formal reinstatement petition."
A comment thread can include the same person many times, and it can include people who disagree. TechStartups reaches the same conclusion: the internal discussion "does not establish that employees have signed a separate formal petition."
So the most-cited number in this story measures activity, not headcount.
The unverified letter
The third item is the weakest. Clash Report describes a letter on social media, purportedly from hundreds of Nvidia employees threatening to leave for a SpaceX chip project. Its authenticity hasn't been confirmed, and the outlet notes that its wording closely tracks a 2023 OpenAI staff letter.
Treat it as unconfirmed until someone verifies it.
Could a petition actually bring Jensen Huang back?
Not by itself. A petition can't reinstate a CEO, because only a company's board of directors can appoint one. What a petition can do is change how the directors weigh their options.
Who holds the power
At a public company like Nvidia, the chain of authority is short:
- Shareholders elect the directors, normally at the annual meeting.
- The directors hire and remove the CEO.
- Employees, customers, and commentators have influence but no vote.
A Change.org petition sits in the third group even when shareholders sign it, because it isn't a vote of shares. The petition says so itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
6 questions
1Did Elon Musk sign a petition to reinstate Jensen Huang?
It's unconfirmed. Musk wrote on X on November 13, 2026 that a petition is underway and "I'm signing it too," but he didn't name the petition or link to one. Clash Report found no immediate confirmation that he had signed a specific petition.
