Nvidia Board Approached Arm CEO Rene Haas in CEO Search, FT Reports

The search for Nvidia's next chief executive has its first named external approach. The Financial Times reported on Friday that Nvidia's board has approached Rene Haas, the chief executive of Arm Holdings, in its search for a successor to Jensen Huang, citing people familiar with the matter.

The FT says Haas is among several candidates being considered, and that there is no guarantee he will be offered the job or accept it. Arm declined to comment. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the report. Nothing about the approach has been confirmed by either company — this is a single-source report, and it is presented here as one.

Why Haas fits the board's problem#

Haas is not an outsider to Nvidia. He spent seven years at the company, rising to vice president and general manager of its computing products business, before joining Arm in 2013, according to Reuters. He has been Arm's chief executive since February 2022, led the British chip designer through its Nasdaq listing in 2023, and in April also took over the international business of Arm's parent, SoftBank, where he sits on the group board. The FT reports he has longstanding ties to Huang and to Nvidia's board.

There is history between the two companies as well. Nvidia agreed to buy Arm from SoftBank for $40 billion in 2020, a deal the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued to block; it was abandoned in February 2022, and Arm went public instead. Four years on, the board is reported to be courting the man who runs the company it could not buy.

The field is wide open#

Interim chief executive Colette Kress, the finance chief who has run Nvidia's money since 2013, holds the job while the board searches, and Nvidia has said it will consider internal and external candidates. Reuters' rundown of the names in circulation includes Kress and Ian Buck, the engineering chief who leads hyperscale and data-center products and invented the CUDA software platform. Prediction markets on Thursday favored Buck, followed by Kress and then Haas; after the FT report on Friday, Haas moved to the front of that pricing.

The speculation has reached the White House: President Trump posted on Thursday that Tim Cook should take the job — "There is only one man to take his place - TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!" — a suggestion Reuters included in its candidate survey.

The market is pricing uncertainty, not a name#

Nvidia shares were down 3.1% at $161.04 in midday trading Friday, after closing down 4.3% on Thursday at $166.19 — a session that took the stock down 14% at its low, to its weakest level in nearly 16 months. Arm shares were last down 4.8% on Friday, in a broad AI selloff that pulled the Nasdaq-100 down 2% and hit Nvidia-backed cloud firms CoreWeave and Nebius down about 9% each, according to Reuters.

The board has set no public timetable. The next fixed point is earnings on Tuesday, November 17, when Kress leads her first call as interim chief executive — and when every analyst question about succession will land on the executive the board has not yet decided to keep or replace.

Sources#

• Financial Times, "Arm boss Rene Haas approached in Nvidia CEO search," November 13, 2026 — the original report, citing people familiar with the matter.
• Reuters, "Arm's Haas approached by Nvidia board as part of CEO search, FT reports," November 13, 2026 (Arm's no-comment, Nvidia's non-response, and Reuters' inability to verify are from this report).
• Reuters, "Tim Cook for Nvidia CEO? Trump and the world ponder who's next," November 12, 2026 (candidate field, prediction-market ordering, Haas biography).
• Reuters, "Colette Kress, the CFO who challenged Huang's bets, is Nvidia's interim CEO," November 13, 2026 (Thursday's market move).
• Reuters market wrap, November 13, 2026 (Friday AI-sector selloff, Arm shares).
• NVIDIA Newsroom, "NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition," November 12, 2026 (Kress interim appointment; internal and external candidates).
• Friday intraday prices: Finnhub, November 13, 2026, 12:54 PM ET.

Educational content only — not investment advice. The approach described above is reported by the Financial Times and has not been confirmed by Nvidia or Arm.