Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue offered a brief but pointed reaction on Thursday to the departure of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, describing it as a "really sad day." The context: Nvidia had revealed in September its intention to acquire the open-source AI model platform for $12.9 billion—a deal that ranks as the second-largest in the company's history, trailing only its $20 billion purchase of chipmaker Groq's assets in December 2025. "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." Delangue wrote on X.

The statement carries weight because it suggests Huang's exit may be a source of concern for open-source proponents—and Delangue appears to be trying to calm those fears. In his role as Nvidia's CEO, Huang had built a reputation as a vocal champion of open-source AI and open-weight models, which raises questions about how the company might shift its stance on the space now that he's no longer at the helm. Following Nvidia's acquisition announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice started probing how the deal could affect competition in the AI market, according to Reuters in October. Nvidia committed to maintaining the platform's open support, though the acquisition would also give the company command of a key distribution channel for AI models. The Hugging Face deal remains on track to close in the first half of 2027. Inquiries seeking additional comment on the deal's status and whether Hugging Face has yet spoken with Nvidia's interim CEO Collette Kress went unanswered.

Huang's support for open-source and open-weight AI stretches well beyond Hugging Face. In July, he published an AI policy letter as his first-ever post on X. The letter—signed by 25 companies, among them Microsoft, Meta, Hugging Face, IBM, and Palantir—called on the U.S. government to avoid overly restricting open-weight AI models. It argued that models "anyone can download, inspect, modify, and run on their own infrastructure" are a vital component of the AI ecosystem, making AI "more accessible, adaptable, and widely available."

Huang further wrote that open-weight models broaden access to the AI economy, bolster competition, and give customers more control by ensuring they won't be locked into a single provider. "Open models strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty," his X post read.

In August, Nvidia also unveiled a $6 billion agreement with coding startup Poolside aimed at building out an open AI ecosystem in the U.S. to help the country compete with Chinese firms such as DeepSeek and Kimi K3, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Last month, Nvidia broadened its Nemotron lineup of open-weight models with a large 120-billion-parameter model designed for enterprise agents, along with two new lightweight Bolt models that run on PCs. Earlier in the year, Huang championed open-source AI during his January keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, remarking that open-source models have "really revolutionized artificial intelligence."