Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's net worth has experienced a staggering increase over the past five years, soaring from roughly $3 billion to more than $90 billion, largely due to the company's dominance in the artificial intelligence (AI) chip market. The 61-year-old cofounder and chief executive of the Silicon Valley-based chipmaker saw his fortune grow by almost $8 billion on Thursday alone, as Nvidia's stock surged 9% to a record high of nearly $1,038 per share.
Huang's remarkable rise in wealth is primarily attributed to his 3.5% stake in Nvidia, which he cofounded in 1993. The company's stock has been on a meteoric rise, particularly over the past five years, with shares returning an astonishing 21,500% over the last decade and 2,500% in the last five years. This year alone, Nvidia's stock has gained 115%, adding $220 billion in market value on Thursday and growing to a $2.6 trillion market capitalization, surpassing the combined valuations of Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase, and Tesla.
The surge in Nvidia's stock comes on the heels of the company's blowout quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, which showed a more than 600% annual increase in profits. Nvidia's success is largely driven by the insatiable demand for its AI graphics processing units (GPUs), as the company has become the top supplier to the biggest technology companies investing in AI research and development.
Huang, who founded Nvidia to build GPUs for 3D gaming, has been the face of the company and its principal salesperson, constantly extolling the potential and power of using the company's GPUs for building AI. "We are fundamentally changing how computing works and what computers can do," Huang said during the earnings call.
The shift in Nvidia's fortunes can be traced back to late 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT, sparking widespread interest in generative AI. As companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta bolstered their investments in AI research and development, they turned to Nvidia for the billions of dollars worth of AI chips needed to build out their models. Nvidia, which has been developing AI software and tools for more than a decade, now holds about 80% of the market for AI chips.
Huang's net worth growth has been nothing short of remarkable. According to Forbes' calculations, he was worth just $4.7 billion as of the 2020 billionaires list and $13.5 billion at the beginning of last year. With his current net worth of $91 billion, Huang has leapfrogged Indian mogul Gautam Adani to become the 17th-richest person in the world, having surpassed Walmart heirs Alice, Jim, and Rob Walton earlier this week to vault into the top 20.
Wall Street analysts have been effusive in their praise for Huang and Nvidia. "The Godfather of AI Jensen and Nvidia delivered another masterpiece quarter," gushed Wedbush's Dan Ives in a note to clients. Bernstein analysts led by Stacy Rasgon believe that even after the valuation spike, Nvidia's growth story "is clearly nowhere near its end, and likely nowhere near its peak."
As a testament to Nvidia's success, Huang will receive $8.7 million in quarterly dividend payments next month after the company upped its dividend payout by 150% to $0.10 per share before the stock split. While this may seem like a substantial sum, it pales in comparison to the roughly $175 million in quarterly dividends paid out to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
