Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang completes US$1 billion share sale
[SAN FRANCSICO] Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang has sold more than US$1 billion worth of the chipmaker’s shares since June, completing a massive pre-planned stock sale.
The final sale of 25,000 shares, reported Friday (Oct 31), wrapped up an arrangement adopted by Huang in March to unload as many as six million shares by year-end. The stock was worth about US$865 million when he started selling in late June, but has climbed over 40 per cent since then amid unquenchable demand for artificial intelligence (AI) processors.
The Santa Clara, California-based company became the first to reach US$5 trillion in market value Wednesday after announcing a flurry of new partners, just four months after it cracked the US$4 trillion threshold. It has minted three new billionaires this year alone, including board member Brooke Seawell, who joined their ranks as the stock shot up in recent days.
Huang, 62, ranks ninth on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a US$175.7 billion fortune, up US$61.3 billion this year.
The CEO has sold more than US$2.9 billion of Nvidia stock since 2001, according to Bloomberg’s calculations, and holds a 3.5 per cent stake in the company. He’s also donated shares worth more than US$300 million this year to his foundation and a donor-advised fund.
Nvidia didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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Huang isn’t the only company insider riding the AI wave to greater riches. His sales were surpassed in the third quarter by Arista Networks CEO Jayshree Ullal, who sold US$861 million of stock, and was ranked only behind Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos in terms of top company insider sellers. Insiders at CoreWeave sold more than US$1 billion in the last quarter after its initial public offering lockup.
Nvidia insider sellers, including Huang, unloaded nearly US$1.5 billion of stock through the third quarter, according to Washington Service data, which tracks such sales. In 2024, Nvidia insiders sold more than US$2 billion, up from US$462 million in 2023.
While many companies have benefited from the AI gold rush, Nvidia stands alone in a virtually unheard-of feat of wealth creation with seven billionaires, including Huang, among its ranks.
In recent months, chief financial officer Colette Kress and Jay Puri, who oversees sales and marketing as executive vice president of worldwide field operations, gained 10-figure fortunes with net worths of about US$1.2 billion each, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.
Nvidia board member Tench Coxe recently joined the list of the world’s 500 richest people with a net worth of US$7.5 billion. Fellow director Mark Stevens ranks 247th with a US$12.5 billion fortune, made up of Nvidia stock and partial ownership of the Golden State Warriors. Harvey Jones, another director, holds a US$1.5 billion position.
Seawell is the most recent addition to the club and, along with his heirs, has a net worth of US$1.1 billion, he confirmed in an email. Unlike Coxe and Stevens, who took board seats as part of their venture firm’s investments, Seawell was an executive for NetDynamics when he was added to the board in 1997 and remains a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. BLOOMBERG
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