Founders forced out of the companies they built are far more common than the myth of the untouchable visionary suggests. From Steve Jobs at Apple to Travis Kalanick at Uber, some of the most famous CEOs in business history were fired, pushed to resign or sidelined by the boards and investors they had brought in. The latest is Jensen Huang, who resigned as NVIDIA’s CEO on November 12, 2026. Below are 20 founders and CEOs who lost their companies or their jobs, with the year each company was founded and when the founder was removed.
The latest case: Jensen Huang resigns as NVIDIA CEO
Jensen Huang, NVIDIA
Founded: 1993 · Left: November 12, 2026
Huang co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and ran it for 33 years, taking it from a graphics-chip startup to one of the most valuable companies in the world. On November 12, 2026, NVIDIA announced that he had resigned as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. CFO Colette Kress became interim CEO and Harvey Jones became the company’s first board chair. The announcement gives no reason. Four days earlier, the board had opened an independent investigation after reports that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort, while saying it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. Whether he was pushed out has not been confirmed.
Founders fired by their own boards and investors
The classic founder ouster is a boardroom vote. These nine founders were replaced as CEO by directors or investors who judged that the company needed someone else in charge.
Steve Jobs, Apple
Founded: 1976 · Removed: 1985 (resigned in September)
Jobs co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976. In 1985 he lost a power struggle with CEO John Sculley, whom he had recruited from Pepsi, and the board sided with Sculley. Stripped of his operating role, Jobs resigned in September 1985 and started NeXT. Apple bought NeXT in 1996, and Jobs returned in 1997 to lead one of the most famous comebacks in business history.
Elon Musk, X.com (PayPal)
Founded: 1999 · Removed: September 2000
Musk founded the online bank X.com in 1999, which merged with Confinity to become PayPal. In September 2000, while he was traveling, the board replaced him as CEO with Confinity co-founder Peter Thiel after internal clashes over technology and strategy. Musk stayed a major shareholder, and PayPal’s sale to eBay in 2002 funded his next ventures.
Martin Eberhard, Tesla
Founded: 2003 · Removed: August 2007
Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning incorporated Tesla Motors in July 2003. Eberhard was the company’s first CEO, but in August 2007 the board asked him to step down amid Roadster delays and rising costs, and he left the company altogether by early 2008. He has said the board met without him. A 2009 settlement recognized five Tesla founders: Eberhard, Tarpenning, Ian Wright, JB Straubel and Elon Musk.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter
Founded: 2006 · Removed: October 2008
Dorsey co-founded Twitter in 2006 and was its first CEO. In October 2008 the board replaced him with co-founder Evan Williams, and Dorsey became chairman. He returned to the company as executive chairman in 2011 and became CEO again in 2015, which makes his one of the few ouster-and-comeback stories in tech.
Andrew Mason, Groupon
Founded: 2008 · Removed: February 2013
Mason founded Groupon in 2008, and it grew into one of the fastest-growing companies in history. By early 2013 its stock had fallen sharply from the IPO price and the board lost patience. Mason was fired on February 28, 2013. His farewell memo, which said he had been fired, was widely shared for its humor.
Travis Kalanick, Uber
Founded: 2009 · Removed: June 2017
Kalanick co-founded Uber, first called UberCab, in 2009 and built it into a global ride-hailing giant. After a year of scandals involving workplace harassment, a lawsuit and a video of him arguing with a driver, major investors demanded that he step down. He resigned on June 20, 2017. Dara Khosrowshahi took over as CEO in 2017.
Adam Neumann, WeWork
Founded: 2010 · Removed: September 2019
Neumann co-founded WeWork in 2010 and pushed its valuation to about $47 billion. When the company’s IPO filing exposed heavy losses and governance concerns, including his control of the company and related-party deals, the IPO collapsed. Under pressure from investors including SoftBank, he stepped down as CEO in September 2019. WeWork filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
Sam Altman, OpenAI
Founded: 2015 · Removed: November 17, 2023 (reinstated November 22)
Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015. On November 17, 2023, the board fired him, saying he had not been consistently candid with directors. After most of the staff threatened to quit and investors pushed back, he was reinstated five days later, and the board was reshuffled. It is the shortest ouster on this list.
Kenneth Olsen, Digital Equipment Corporation
Founded: 1957 · Removed: July 1992
Olsen founded DEC in 1957 and built it into the second-largest computer maker in the world, behind only IBM. He was slow to move from minicomputers to personal computers and workstations. Heavy losses followed, and he resigned in July 1992 under pressure from the board. DEC was sold to Compaq in 1998.
Founders ousted after scandal and misconduct allegations
Sometimes the trigger is not performance but conduct. These four founders were removed, or resigned under pressure, after allegations or public controversy.
Dov Charney, American Apparel
Founded: 1989 · Removed: June 2014 (suspended), December 2014 (fired)
Charney founded American Apparel in 1989, and it became known for American-made basics and provocative advertising. In June 2014 the board suspended him as CEO and removed him as chairman following allegations of misconduct. After a months-long investigation, the company fired him “for cause” on December 16, 2014. Charney has denied wrongdoing. American Apparel filed for bankruptcy in 2015, and he later started a new company, Los Angeles Apparel.
John Schnatter, Papa John’s
Founded: 1984 · Removed: December 2017 (CEO), July 2018 (chairman)
Schnatter founded Papa John’s in 1984, in the back of his father’s tavern in Indiana. He stepped down as CEO in December 2017 after comments about NFL player protests that the company said hurt its sales. In July 2018 he resigned as chairman after a report that he had used a racial slur on a conference call. He later sold most of his stake and cut ties with the company.
Brendan Eich, Mozilla
Founded: 1998 · Removed: April 2014
Eich, the creator of JavaScript, co-founded Mozilla in 1998. He was named CEO on March 24, 2014, but a backlash followed over his 2008 donation to a campaign supporting California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. He resigned on April 3, 2014, after only about ten days in the job. His is the shortest tenure of any CEO on this list.
Steve Wynn, Wynn Resorts
Founded: 2002 · Removed: February 2018
Wynn built the Las Vegas resorts that made his name and founded Wynn Resorts in 2002. In February 2018, after press reports of sexual misconduct allegations spanning decades, he resigned as chairman and CEO. Wynn has denied the allegations. The company later paid large fines to regulators and settled shareholder lawsuits.
Founders who fell after fraud and collapse
These three founders left as their companies unraveled, and all three faced criminal charges. They are a different kind of story from the sympathetic ousters above.
Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos
Founded: 2003 · Removed: June 2018
Holmes founded Theranos at 19, promising blood tests from a few drops of blood. Reporting by The Wall Street Journal in 2015 raised doubts that the technology worked. She was charged with fraud in March 2018 and stepped down as CEO in June 2018, and Theranos dissolved that September. A jury convicted her of investor fraud in January 2022.
Trevor Milton, Nikola
Founded: 2014 · Removed: September 2020
Milton founded the electric-truck maker Nikola in 2014. In September 2020 a short-seller report accused him of misleading investors about the company’s technology, and he resigned as executive chairman days later. He was convicted of securities fraud in 2022 and later received a presidential pardon in 2025. Nikola filed for bankruptcy in 2025.
Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX
Founded: 2019 · Removed: November 11, 2022
Bankman-Fried founded the crypto exchange FTX in 2019, and at its peak it was valued at about $32 billion. When customers rushed to withdraw funds in November 2022, the company collapsed, and he resigned as CEO on November 11 as FTX filed for bankruptcy. He was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in November 2023 and sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024.
Founders who stepped aside under investor pressure
These three founders formally resigned or stepped aside, but pressure from investors, the board or the market was plain.
Jerry Yang, Yahoo
Founded: 1994 · Removed: January 2009 (announced November 2008)
Yang and David Filo started Yahoo in 1994 as a directory of websites. Yang became CEO in 2007, and in 2008 the board and shareholders criticized him for rejecting Microsoft’s takeover offer of about $44.6 billion. He announced in November 2008 that he would step down, and Carol Bartz took over in January 2009.
Mark Pincus, Zynga
Founded: 2007 · Removed: July 2013
Pincus founded Zynga, the maker of FarmVille, in 2007, and the company went public in 2011. Its stock fell sharply as players left Facebook games, and in July 2013 he stepped aside as CEO in favor of Don Mattrick. Pincus returned as CEO in 2015 and left again in 2016.
Emad Mostaque, Stability AI
Founded: 2019 · Removed: March 2024
Mostaque founded Stability AI, the company behind the Stable Diffusion image generator. Investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, pushed for his departure through 2023 amid concerns about management and cash. Senior researchers left, and he resigned as CEO and from the board on March 22–23, 2024, saying he wanted to pursue decentralized AI. Some sources date the company’s founding to 2020.
What these founder ousters have in common
Most of these exits followed the same path: a company grew, outside investors and independent directors gained voting power, and the founder’s personal control shrank. When results slipped or a scandal broke, the board had the votes to act. Four of the founders came back, though. Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Dorsey to Twitter in 2015, Pincus to Zynga in 2015 and Altman to OpenAI within five days. Whether Jensen Huang’s exit from NVIDIA turns out to be forced, voluntary or temporary is still unknown.
FAQ: founders forced out of their own companies
Which famous founders were fired from their own companies?
Steve Jobs (Apple, 1985), Jack Dorsey (Twitter, 2008), Andrew Mason (Groupon, 2013), Travis Kalanick (Uber, 2017), Adam Neumann (WeWork, 2019) and Sam Altman (OpenAI, 2023) are among the best-known cases.
Can a founder return after being forced out?
Yes. Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Jack Dorsey returned as Twitter CEO in 2015, and Sam Altman was reinstated at OpenAI five days after he was fired in November 2023.
Why are founders forced out of their own companies?
The usual reasons are poor financial results, governance disputes, misconduct allegations and a loss of investor confidence. As a company raises money and adds independent directors, the founder’s control usually shrinks, so a board can remove a founder-CEO.
Was Jensen Huang fired from NVIDIA?
NVIDIA says Huang resigned on November 12, 2026, and its announcement gives no reason. The board had opened an independent investigation four days earlier. As of November 13, 2026, no source confirms that he was forced out.