Jensen Huang interrupted Colette Kress’s presentation during an August finance meeting and called her “a deer in the headlights,” The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a person familiar with the comments. He also described her as a “reporting CFO,” not someone who could help him define strategy or make decisions, according to the Journal. Source
Kress became Nvidia’s interim CEO on November 12 after Huang stepped down. Nvidia is considering internal and external candidates for a permanent successor. The “reporting CFO” now has a considerably bigger remit. SourceSource
Selling the chips—and backing the buyers
According to the Journal, Nvidia was considering guarantees worth billions of dollars for companies that couldn’t afford its hardware. Deals led by Huang’s son-in-law, vice president Nico Caprez, offered financing to emerging cloud providers and data-center developers to cultivate long-term customers. Source
Kress questioned which deals Nvidia should pursue, how to value the guarantees and how to calculate investment returns, the Journal reports, citing a person familiar with the matter. Not exactly a side issue for a finance chief. Reuters separately reports that Kress and her staff clashed with Huang and Nvidia’s sales team over financing commitments involving OpenAI and infrastructure companies including Lambda. SourceSource
One example was a proposed financial backstop for OpenAI’s Ohio data-center project. Nvidia’s backing was intended to reassure banks about lending, given OpenAI’s planned lease obligations. The Journal reports that Kress reworked the arrangement and cut Nvidia’s initial financial commitment in half, citing people familiar with the deal. The smaller agreement was signed on August 17. Source
Huang subsequently pressed staff to develop a framework for judging guarantees, including the chip sales they might generate. Nvidia also paused some revenue-sharing credit-support deals in late August. Customers were told that greater executive and board review was making agreements harder to close quickly, according to the Journal’s sources. These checks and pauses preceded the leadership change. Neither the Journal nor Reuters reports a new financing policy under Kress. SourceSource
Kress defended the checkbook, too
Kress also publicly defended Nvidia’s financing approach. In late August, she said: “We recognize the scale of this support, and we know some will call this circular financing. We see it differently.” She predicted excellent equity returns on invested capital, according to the Journal. Source
Comments