By Chris Morris
Publication Date: 2026-01-07 13:29:00
LAS VEGAS — Since 1993, Jensen Huang has held the position of CEO at Nvidia. He led the company from a stock price of pennies per share from 1999 to 2016 to its current height of more than $187 — and the most valuable company in the world.
That’s a tenure that far surpasses other tech leaders (and those in most other industries), including Apple’s Tim Cook (14 years), Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg (22) and Tesla’s Elon Musk (who founded SpaceX in 2002).
Huang will turn 63 this year, though. And the company has not announced any formal succession plan for him whenever he does eventually call it quits, which has caused some agita amongst shareholders. At a Q&A session with reporters at CES in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Huang addressed the speculation, making it clear he has no plans to go anywhere.
“The secret for being CEO for this long is 1, don’t get fired, and 2, don’t get bored,” he said. “I don’t know which one comes first. How long [will I remain CEO]? For as long as I deserve it.”
Huang said there is a “great responsibility” in being CEO of Nvidia, an acknowledgement that the AI chip maker’s performance has ripple effects not only on the tech sector, but the market as a whole.
“We are the captain of this industry and we have supply chain partners and collaboration partners all over the world who are counting on us to do our part,” he said. “So there is a great responsibility that comes with our company. It took us 34 years to get here. We’re getting good at it. If you do…