On November 15, value investor Duan Yongping said shareholders and employees “have a chance,” but that any effort would need to proceed via a shareholders’ meeting to remove some incumbent directors and would take a long time.
He made the comments in response to a user’s question noting that, after Jensen Huang resigned, an online petition urging his return had garnered more than 80,000 signatures. The question also asked whether the board should take such public sentiment seriously or keep corporate decisions insulated from public opinion.
Duan framed the issue in terms of process and substance. “The key is what problems ‘Huang’ actually has; if there is no serious violation of law, I think he may still have a chance to go back, but the opportunity seems very small,” he wrote. He emphasized that stakeholders’ proper avenue is formal corporate governance procedures rather than ad hoc appeals.
While the prompting comment explicitly highlighted the size of the petition and posed a question about the board’s stance toward public pressure, Duan did not take a direct position on whether directors should heed online petitions. Instead, he underscored the primacy of established procedures and said any outcome would depend on the issues attributed to “Huang” and the results of formal shareholder actions.
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