From Musk's signed petition to pressure from PE shareholders: The leadership turmoil at NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) is escalating into a supply chain trust crisis.

SpaceX CEO Musk stated that after former CEO Jensen Huang was ousted, NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) will face supply chain problems. "Jensen Huang did an extremely excellent job on the supply chain at NVIDIA Corporation, but many of those deals were reached with a 'handshake' with the other party, not written contracts," the Tesla, Inc. CEO wrote in an X post on Saturday morning. "Losing Jensen Huang, at least some of those key deals will be lost." Musk's comments were in response to SemiAnalysis CEO Dylan Patel's interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on November 12. "If Jensen Huang promised me compute delivery, or I requested acceleration of certain components, he always delivered," Musk wrote in another post on Saturday morning. "Of course, we would always paper a purchase order afterward, but I never doubted for a second that it would not happen." "Please bring Jensen Huang back": Musk will sign petition On Friday, Musk said a petition demanding Jensen Huang's reinstatement is currently circulating, and he will sign it. On the same day, two well-known private equity institutions with heavy positions in NVIDIA Corporation also called on the company's board asking it to "take its time" in deciding the chipmaker's future leadership and to "include the option of Jensen Huang possibly returning." Altimeter Capital Management CEO Brad Gerstner and Atreides Management managing partner and chief investment officer Gavin Baker jointly sent a letter to the board on Friday, which was published on X. "We believe the board should avoid hastily replacing Jensen Huang, so as not to harm and impede shareholders' best interests." The two said that if, after all facts are clarified, Jensen Huang is barred from returning as CEO, "that is within the board's authority." "But the founder and long-term outstanding leader of this extraordinary company deserves a prudent process, rather than being hastily replaced before the facts are clear." According to the two institutions' latest SEC filings, Altimeter holds about 9.4 million NVIDIA Corporation shares, and Atreides holds about 1.2 million shares. The weight of the matter: the "personal credit" discount in the supply chain Musk's statement reveals a risk that is difficult to quantify: NVIDIA Corporation's supply chain advantage is, to a considerable extent, built on Jensen Huang's personal credibility and long-term relationships. When these "handshake agreements" lose the personalized guarantee of performance, even if the company has a deep talent pool and a technological moat, its short-term delivery certainty and priority supply capability may still be damaged and this is precisely the scarcest resource in the era of AI compute shortage.