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Clem Delangue

Co-founder and chief executive of Hugging Face12

By Kenning

Clem Delangue is co-founder and chief executive of Hugging Face, the company that calls itself the AI community building the future. His first start-up job was at Moodstocks, a computer vision company that Google later bought.123

When Hugging Face raised its Series C in May 2022, it hosted 100,000 models and 10,000 datasets. Fifteen months later it reported 500,000 models, 250,000 datasets and 250,000 apps.45

From Moodstocks to Hugging Face

Delangue studied at Stanford from 2011 to 2012 through Stanford Engineering Everywhere. The Official Board lists a Master in Management from ESCP. He says his first start-up experience was Moodstocks, where he worked on machine learning for computer vision. Google acquired the company.217

Institut Choiseul lists him as co-founder and director general of Hugging Face. In a written statement to the US Senate's AI Insight Forum in September 2023 he introduced himself as its co-founder and CEO.118

A hundred million, then two hundred and thirty-five

Lux Capital led a $100 million Series C announced on 9 May 2022, with Sequoia and Coatue taking large stakes. The company wrote that it had grown from 30 to more than 120 people in a year.4

In August 2023 Axios reported a $235 million Series D at a $4.5 billion post-money valuation. Partners followed. IBM put Hugging Face libraries into watsonx.ai in 2023, Google Cloud and Microsoft signed deals in 2024, and in May 2024 Hugging Face committed $10 million in free GPUs for developers.5781011

The case for open models

Delangue argues that openness pays. In an October 2024 post he wrote: "The reasons are not just altruistic, it's also because sharing your science and your models pushes you to build AI faster". He added that it attracts scientists and engineers and brings more usage and community contributions.13

On risk, he told TIME in 2023: "more democratization creates more counterpowers and fewer risks, because it empowers and enables regulation." TIME called open-source AI a potential double-edged sword. Delangue's answer was that "Hugging Face can enforce a set of community standards that prevent harmful AI models from proliferating".14

The Senate statement asked policymakers for transparency requirements on pretraining data, fine-tuning data and models.1

Malicious models on the hub

In February 2024 security firm JFrog said it had found around 100 models on Hugging Face with malicious functionality. JFrog said the platform marks pickle-based models as unsafe but does not block them from download. BleepingComputer reported the same finding independently.915

In February 2025 ReversingLabs found two more malicious models that evaded Hugging Face's Picklescan tool. Help Net Security reported that the Hugging Face security team removed them and improved Picklescan's detection of broken pickle files.12

EVOX Productions v. Stability AI

This lawsuit is against the company, not Delangue personally. EVOX Productions filed it on 2 July 2026 in the Central District of California against Stability AI and others, Hugging Face among them. EVOX alleges that a Stanford Cars dataset hosted on Hugging Face contains 225 of its photographs and was downloaded at least 90,000 times.616

Hugging Face was served on 16 July. The clerk entered default against it on 4 September, and on 11 September the court set that aside on a joint stipulation. Hugging Face filed a motion to dismiss on 5 October, with a hearing set for 11 January 2027. There is no ruling, and EVOX's allegations are unproven.6

Delangue, year by year

  1. Began studying at Stanford through Stanford Engineering Everywhere.2

  2. Hugging Face announced a $100 million Series C led by Lux Capital.4

  3. Hugging Face partnered with IBM on watsonx.ai.7

  4. Raised $235 million in Series D funding at a $4.5 billion post-money valuation.5

  5. Sent a written statement to the US Senate AI Insight Forum.1

  6. Hugging Face and Google announced a partnership on open AI.8

  7. JFrog reported about 100 malicious models on Hugging Face.9

  8. Hugging Face committed $10 million in free GPUs for developers.10

  9. Hugging Face and Microsoft announced deeper collaboration.11

  10. Hugging Face removed two malicious models reported by ReversingLabs.12

  11. EVOX Productions sued Stability AI and others, including Hugging Face, in federal court in California.6

  12. Hugging Face filed a motion to dismiss the EVOX case.6

Questions people ask about Clem Delangue

What does Clem Delangue do?

He is co-founder and chief executive of Hugging Face.12

What is Hugging Face worth?

Axios reported a $4.5 billion post-money valuation after the company's $235 million Series D in August 2023.5

Where did Clem Delangue study?

He studied at Stanford from 2011 to 2012 through Stanford Engineering Everywhere, and The Official Board lists a Master in Management from ESCP.217

What did Delangue do before Hugging Face?

He says his first start-up experience was at Moodstocks, which built machine learning for computer vision and was later acquired by Google.2

Is Hugging Face being sued?

Yes. EVOX Productions sued Stability AI and others, Hugging Face among them, in July 2026 over photographs it says are in a hosted dataset. Hugging Face filed a motion to dismiss on 5 October 2026. The claims are unproven.616

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Sources

  1. Hugging Face written Senate AI Insight Forum statementhuggingface.co · primary · Sep 2023
  2. Clem Delangue LinkedIn profilelinkedin.com · primary
  3. Hugging Facehuggingface.co · primary
  4. Hugging Facehuggingface.co · primary · 9 May 2022
  5. Axiosaxios.com · secondary · 24 August 2023
  6. PACER docket via Midpage (C.D. Cal. 2:26-cv-07201)app.midpage.ai · primary · 2 July 2026
  7. Hugging Facehuggingface.co · primary · 9 May 2023
  8. Hugging Facehuggingface.co · primary · 25 January 2024
  9. JFrogjfrog.com · primary · 27 February 2024
  10. Hugging Face post quoting Clem Delanguehuggingface.co · primary · 16 May 2024
  11. Hugging Facehuggingface.co · primary · 21 May 2024
  12. Help Net Securityhelpnetsecurity.com · secondary · 10 February 2025
  13. Clem Delangue Hugging Face posthuggingface.co · social · 4 October 2024
  14. TIME interviewqa.time.com · secondary · 7 September 2023
  15. BleepingComputerbleepingcomputer.com · secondary · 28 February 2024
  16. ChatGPT is eating the worldchatgptiseatingtheworld.com · secondary · 3 July 2026
  17. The Official Boardtheofficialboard.fr · secondary
  18. Institut Choiseulchoiseul.info · secondary

Checked against these sources. We review every page at least every three months.