Microsoft never built the cheap, CLI-only version of NT that would have given Linux a run for its money. It would have helped preserve some of the hacker mindshare they once had with DOS.
The closest they ever got to a 'nothing' NT was something like Windows Core or Factory/Validation OS. They still ship with some windowing capabilities, but they could strip them out if they wanted to, because there is a barebones text-only mode in Windows. Of course, all these editions are or were tightly regulated and only issued to big businesses who are supposed to have them, it's nothing that a Linux user would want.
Windows didn't ship with a competent PDF reader for over a decade and some because of the DOJ: Any attempt by Microsoft to enter a market that already had a competition was seen as anticompetitive.
It's pretty trivial to get ValidationOS running, even down to RL1 where the kernel and NT execution environment are the only things you have: https://youtu.be/Zw5ysOJcY84?t=610
No GUI, with admin through Powershell, remote MMC snap-ins, or the SCUM/SCOM automation stuff. The managed hosting company I worked for around 2010 used it fairly heavily, and it didn't seem much worse to admin than the CFEngine / Puppet type tooling we had for Linux at the time.