Hugging Face CEO vows to keep fighting for open-source AI as Huang exit clouds NVIDIA's $12.9B deal

Hugging Face is in the middle of being acquired. NVIDIA agreed to a reported $12.9 billion deal, citing its position as the hub's largest contributor with more than 500 models and 250 datasets, and the deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027. Jensen Huang's sudden resignation now puts the deal's main sponsor out of the picture. Delangue responded on X: "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." The post drew 8.2K likes and 737 reposts. TechCrunch framed it as a pledge made against the backdrop of Huang's exit.

On deal mechanics, NVIDIA has committed to keeping uploads and downloads open, a key promise for a hub that hosts competitors' weights, from Meta's Llama to Chinese open models. The platform kept shipping regardless. This week Thinking Machines published Inkling 2 Small weights under Apache 2.0, NVIDIA itself released the Alpamayo 2 Edge driving model, and IBM introduced LLMON markup in Granite 4.1 on the hub.

Competitive context explains the anxiety. If hardware vendors own the main distribution point for open models, that creates obvious neutrality questions. Could ranking, hosting priority or optimized formats favor one accelerator? Community discussion has focused on those neutrality risks since the deal was reported.

Watch three things. First, whether NVIDIA's interim leadership reaffirms or revisits the acquisition. Second, any regulatory review given the hub's centrality. Third, whether governance commitments such as an independent open-access charter are formalized before close.