Nvidia's new interim CEO, known for caution, takes over after huang's departure

Colette Kress, Nvidia's finance chief, has been appointed the interim CEO, and reports indicate she is an internal veteran rather than an external emergency hire. In her prior role as CFO, Kress was noted for acting as a restraint on high-risk ventures championed by Jensen Huang. She has recently been focused on diversifying the company's financial exposure away from reliance on a small set of major clients. The most notable instance of her cautious approach involved the massive credit guarantee offered to OpenAI. The initial proposal for this backstop deal, intended to support OpenAI's plan to equip 8 gigawatts of data centers with Nvidia chips, was set at $250 billion. Kress intervened, reducing the commitment to approximately $100 billion, thereby cutting over $150 billion, due to concerns that the original figure would unduly alarm investors. With the market questioning the returns on AI infrastructure amid delays in data center construction and canceled cloud orders, investors view Kress as a more conservative leader than Huang. Her tendency is to tighten financing and investment, steering Nvidia away from a model where it simultaneously sells chips and functions as a financier.