Nvidia Interim CEO Kress Pushed Back on OpenAI Backstop

Colette Kress, Nvidia's chief financial officer and now its interim CEO, previously pushed back on a proposed $250 billion credit backstop for OpenAI, The Information reported. Nvidia elevated her this week after Jensen Huang resigned following reports of extramarital affairs, ending a 33-year run as chief executive of the chipmaker he founded.

The backstop at issue would have let OpenAI fill eight gigawatts of data-center space with Nvidia's newest-generation chips. The chipmaker later split that specific arrangement and has guaranteed approximately $100 billion so far, with a $105 billion guarantee attached to OpenAI's Ohio campus.

Sources told The Information that Kress "has sometimes pushed back on deals that Huang championed" and "may take a more conservative approach than Huang did." By one tally reported by FinanceFeeds, the interim chief inherits "at least $286 billion of named commitments to customers, landlords and lenders": $36 billion in neocloud cloud purchases, $20 billion in data-centre leases, the $105 billion OpenAI Ohio guarantee, and up to $125 billion behind a Wall Street credit programme.

Kress is a 13-year Nvidia veteran. How much she can reshape those commitments, versus honor them while the board hunts a permanent chief, is the question hanging over every Nvidia counterparty. The stakes are compounding fast: our tracker has logged 249 Nvidia stories in the last 90 days, including a DOJ antitrust probe disclosed the same day and word Huang agreed to testify to Congress before Thanksgiving.