Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue vows open-source fight after Huang exit

Clément Delangue's public reaction on X came the same day as Jensen Huang's departure, framing it as a blow to open-source AI. The timing matters because Nvidia's $12.9 billion agreement to acquire Hugging Face, announced in September, is still pending and has already drawn scrutiny: the U.S. Department of Justice began making inquiries in October about how the deal would affect competition. Delangue's vow to fight 'harder than ever' suggests he sees the leadership change as a potential risk to the platform's open-source mission, even as Nvidia has pledged to preserve open support.

Huang's advocacy extended well beyond Hugging Face. In July, he published an AI policy letter, signed by 25 companies including Microsoft, Meta, and IBM, urging the U.S. government not to over-restrict open-weight models. He argued that such models expand access to the AI economy and give customers greater control. Nvidia also announced a $6 billion deal with coding startup Poolside in August to build out an open AI ecosystem in the U.S., and last month expanded its Nemotron family of open-weight models. These moves underscore why his departure is seen as worrying to open-source advocates.

The deal's fate now rests with Nvidia's interim CEO Colette Kress and regulators. With the closing scheduled for the first half of 2027, the coming months may reveal whether the new leadership maintains Huang's open-source posture or shifts strategy.