The man who runs every chip, modem, display and battery inside your iPhone and Mac is reportedly on Nvidia’s list of possible next CEOs. Semafor reported late on November 11 that “one person being considered for the top job is Apple hardware chief Johny Srouji,” as Nvidia’s board weighs removing co-founder Jensen Huang.
Bloomberg then named Srouji in a November 12 rundown of possible successors, alongside Nvidia CFO Colette Kress, CUDA inventor Ian Buck and Arm CEO Rene Haas. Nobody has said Srouji was approached, or that he wants the job. Apple hasn’t commented.
What Semafor and Bloomberg report about Nvidia’s search for a new CEO
Here’s where things stand. Nvidia’s board met on the evening of November 11 to decide whether to remove Huang after reports of two extramarital affairs, one of them reportedly with a suspected Chinese spy. Semafor says some directors favor Kress as interim CEO if Huang goes, and that the full board hadn’t decided. Bloomberg reported that Nvidia has hired an outside firm to find candidates for the permanent job.
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By the morning of November 12 there was still no announced outcome. CNBC reported Nvidia stock was down 8.1% in premarket trading, and Bernstein cut its price target from $400 to $200.
Semafor’s Srouji line rests on one person familiar with the matter. A second source told Semafor he was also among the executives considered for the Intel CEO job in 2019. He stayed at Apple that time.
Srouji has run Apple’s chips since the A4 and took over all hardware in April
If your iPhone, iPad or Mac runs an Apple-designed chip, Srouji’s work is inside it. He joined Apple in 2008 to lead the A4, the first Apple-designed system on a chip, after senior processor roles at Intel and IBM, according to Apple. He led the Mac’s move from Intel to Apple silicon.
His job got much bigger this year. On April 20, the same day Apple said John Ternus would succeed Tim Cook, Apple named Srouji chief hardware officer. He now leads Hardware Engineering, the group Ternus used to run, on top of the hardware technologies group he already had. Apple’s announcement lists what that covers:
- Apple silicon and other custom chips, including cellular modems
- Batteries, cameras, displays, sensors and storage controllers
- Product design, system engineering, and reliability and durability testing
Cook said at the time that “Johny is one of the most talented people I have ever had the privilege to work with.” Ternus called him “an incredible partner on the executive team.”
Srouji nearly left Apple in December 2025, and Apple paid to keep him
This isn’t the first time Srouji’s name has come up as a flight risk. In December 2025, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Srouji had told Cook he was seriously considering leaving for another company. Srouji then told his staff he didn’t plan on leaving “anytime soon,” and Gurman reported that Cook had worked hard to keep him, including with a big pay package and more responsibility.
Four months later he got that responsibility. So Apple has already shown it will pay a lot to hold on to him, and he now sits closer to the center of the company than at any point in his career.
What losing its chip chief would mean for future iPhones and Macs
For now, nothing changes for you. Chips take years to design, so the parts already in Apple’s pipeline don’t depend on one person staying. Apple’s silicon group is a large team, not a one-man operation.
The bigger risk is the next phase. Srouji’s group now owns Apple’s own modems, the displays in the OLED MacBook Pro and iPhone Duo, and the durability testing that came under fire after early Duo hinge and screen failures. Losing the person who joined chips and product engineering under one roof, just seven months after Apple did it, would leave Ternus rebuilding his hardware leadership in his first year as CEO.
It would also come on top of other exits. Bloomberg reported this month that Siri chief Mike Rockwell is weighing leaving next year, which we covered in our Rockwell report, and Ternus is already pushing software chief Craig Federighi to move faster on AI, as we covered in this Bloomberg report.
But keep the odds in view. Nvidia hasn’t removed Huang. Kress is the favorite for any interim role, and Srouji is one name on a list built by people who don’t speak for him. For Nvidia, he’d bring exactly what it lacks without Huang, a chip leader with a record of shipping silicon at huge scale. For Apple, the question is whether the counteroffer that worked in 2025 works a second time.
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