Before His Ouster, Jensen Huang Belittled the Executive Replacing Him

Jensen Huang’s departure left Nvidia’s longtime CFO, Colette Kress, as interim CEO without a settled succession plan, amid investigations and questions about the company’s direction. Months before taking over, Kress was publicly belittled by Huang in a meeting about Nvidia’s expanding financial commitments to AI companies. He criticized her as a reactive finance chief rather than a strategic decision-maker, even as she raised concerns about risks in deals intended to help customers afford Nvidia’s chips. The commitments included financing arrangements promoted by Huang’s son-in-law, Nico Caprez, which offered credit support to cloud and data-center companies in return for a share of future revenue.

Kress questioned how Nvidia should select deals, value guarantees and measure returns. She also reworked a proposed backstop for an enormous OpenAI data-center project, cutting Nvidia’s planned commitment in half before the companies signed a smaller deal. Nvidia later paused some financing proposals and began tightening support, while Huang warned major cloud customers that the company needed to preserve supply and avoid relying too heavily on a few buyers. The tensions highlight Nvidia’s exposure to an AI boom it has helped finance: its investments could stimulate demand for its chips, but also leave it vulnerable if customers or the market falter. Kress, who has defended the deals as sound investments, must now balance growth and risk while Nvidia faces leadership uncertainty and scrutiny of Huang’s conduct.