Freed hostage and NVIDIA employee Avinatan Or meets CEO Jensen Huang
Released after 738 days in Hamas captivity, Or visits chip giant’s US headquarters; girlfriend Noa Argamani says founder ‘personally accompanied the family and called repeatedly’
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Released Hamas hostages Avinatan Or, an Israeli employee of chip giant NVIDIA, and his girlfriend Noa Argamani met Thursday evening with the company’s founder and CEO Jensen Huang at its US headquarters, marking Or’s first meeting with the tech executive since his release from Hamas captivity.
The meeting was organized by Amit Krig, senior vice president and head of NVIDIA’s Israel research and development center. Members of NVIDIA’s Israeli management team, currently visiting the US headquarters in Santa Clara, California, also took part in the gathering.
Or was held hostage in Gaza for 738 days after he and Argamani were abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. Footage showing the couple being violently separated during the attack became one of the most widely circulated images of the massacre.
Argamani was freed on June 8, 2024, in an Israeli military rescue operation known as Operation Arnon. Or was released in October as part of a ceasefire deal, alongside 19 other living hostages, and reunited with his girlfriend upon his return to Israel.
Following Thursday’s meeting, Argamani published a post on X highlighting NVIDIA’s support for Or and his family throughout his captivity, describing the company as “one big family.”
She wrote that employees who had never met Or held signs with his photo daily, that company meetings routinely opened with calls for his return, and that his workspace was left untouched until he came home.
Somewhere in early 2022, Avinatan started his first job with @nvidia, a decision that would later prove to be one of the best he ever made in his life.
Throughout the entire two years that Avinatan was held captive, @nvidia was much more than just a workplace; it was one big… pic.twitter.com/6T2cC2fFU2
— Noa Argamani (@ArgamaniNoa) December 11, 2025
“Everyone — absolutely everyone — stepped up and helped,” Argamani wrote, including teammates, managers, employees at NVIDIA’s Israel site and senior executives.
She said the effort was carried out with the direct involvement of Huang, who she said “personally accompanied the family and called repeatedly to ask how they were doing.”
“@nvidia never forgot Avinatan,” she wrote. “Seeing how the company stood by him the entire time shows us what true mutual responsibility really means.”
Weeks earlier, on October 13, following Or’s release, Huang sent an emotional company-wide message to NVIDIA employees announcing that Or had been freed after more than two years in Hamas captivity.
“I am profoundly moved and deeply grateful to share that, just moments ago, our colleague, Avinatan Or, was released to the Red Cross in Gaza,” Huang wrote. “After two unimaginable years in Hamas captivity, Avinatan has come home.”
Huang paid tribute to Or’s mother, Ditza, praising her “strength, courage, and unwavering hope,” and noted that NVIDIA employees in Israel stood alongside her in vigils calling for her son’s return.
He also addressed the toll of the war on the company’s workforce, noting that thousands of NVIDIA employees had served in Israel’s security forces and acknowledging personal losses of those within the company.
“The losses to our Jewish, Druze, and Arab families alike have been immense,” Huang wrote. “Grief knows no borders, no faiths, no divisions.”
“Avinatan — welcome home,” he concluded. “Your safe return brings profound relief and joy to the entire NVIDIA family.”
The Times of Israel Community.