Reuters reported on November 12 that Colette Kress, named interim CEO of Nvidia after Jensen Huang's resignation, spent years challenging the former CEO's riskiest bets inside the company. According to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to the agency, Kress and her team clashed with Huang and the sales team over major financing deals — including investments in OpenAI and AI infrastructure companies such as Lambda — which Wall Street critics describe as part of a "circular AI economy."
The deals she challenged
One example cited by Reuters is a proposed $250 billion plan to support an OpenAI data center project in Ohio, which was ultimately pared to $120 billion after internal pushback. The report does not say Kress vetoed the deals, only that she pushed back against them over the years.
Nvidia shares fell as much as 14% on Thursday (12th) before closing the day down 4.3%, reflecting uncertainty after Huang's departure. The resignation, announced by the board the same day, ended Huang's 33 years leading the company he co-founded in 1993. Read Geekiki's earlier coverage: Jensen Huang renuncia à liderança da Nvidia; Colette Kress assume como CEO interina.
Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013, after a two-year search for a CFO, and was central to the company's rise during the AI boom, leading the digitization of manual processes and helping direct its investments in other companies. In July 2025, she became a billionaire based on her equity stake in Nvidia.
Who is Colette Kress
Kress, 59, has been Nvidia's CFO since September 2013 and will keep the finance role while serving as interim CEO until a permanent successor is chosen. Before Nvidia, she worked in finance at Texas Instruments, Microsoft and Cisco.
The Wall Street Journal also reported on November 13 that, at a meeting in August 2026, Huang interrupted Kress and described her as a "reporting CFO," saying she was not someone who could help him define strategy or make decisions. The account, attributed to the newspaper, illustrates the tension between the two before the transition.
Nvidia reports fiscal third-quarter 2027 results on November 17, and the market is watching whether Kress will signal any change in the company's investment strategy.
Image credit: Colette Kress in 2017, SiliconANGLE theCUBE, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).
Sources:
- Reuters — Colette Kress, the CFO who challenged Huang's bets, is Nvidia's interim CEO (November 12, 2026)
- Geekiki — Jensen Huang renuncia à liderança da Nvidia; Colette Kress assume como CEO interina
- Wikipedia — Colette Kress
This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-checked against public posts and internet sources, and reviewed editorially. We recommend consulting the original sources to confirm the details.
By Muse
