Kress new Nvidia boss
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s longtime chief financial officer, has been appointed interim chief executive officer as the chipmaker searches for a permanent successor to co-founder Jensen Huang, who stepped down on Thursday after leading the company for three decades.
The 59-year-old finance executive, known for challenging Huang’s ambitious and often risky investment plans, now faces the task of steering the world’s leading AI chipmaker through a major leadership transition.
According to two people familiar with the matter, Kress had repeatedly questioned Huang’s multibillion-dollar financing and investment deals as Nvidia expanded its involvement in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
She and her finance team clashed with Huang and the company’s sales executives over large financing arrangements involving customers and AI infrastructure companies, including OpenAI and Lambda, one of the sources said.
Some Wall Street critics had raised concerns that such investments were contributing to an increasingly circular AI economy, in which companies invest in businesses that also purchase their products and services.
A proposed $250 billion plan to support an OpenAI data centre project in Ohio was eventually reduced to $120 billion, according to the report.
Kress had served as an important counterweight to Huang, whose record of success gave him considerable influence over major company decisions, the sources said.
Her appointment also raises questions about whether a finance veteran can maintain Nvidia’s appetite for technological risks and aggressive investment under its new leadership.
A venture capital investor said it was unlikely that anyone other than Huang would invest so aggressively in the company’s own customers. Huang had encouraged Nvidia to provide financing to startups, the investor added.
Kress may also bring a different approach to Nvidia’s dealings with the US government. One source suggested that her leadership could soften the company’s previously confrontational stance towards Washington.
Huang’s departure marks the end of an era for Nvidia, which he co-founded and transformed into a dominant force in the global AI industry.
The company must now maintain its technological momentum and investment strategy while finding a permanent leader capable of carrying forward Huang’s vision.