Nvidia made history earlier this month by becoming the first company ever to reach a $4 trillion market capitalization. The historic milestone was a win not only for investors and A.I. enthusiasts, but also for a little-known nonprofit launched nearly two decades ago by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Thanks to a generous reserve of Nvidia stock, the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation has quietly become one of the fastest-growing private foundations in the world.
Founded in 2007 by Huang and his wife, the foundation began with 370,000 Nvidia shares, then worth around $12.6 million, according to data firm FoundationMark. By the end of 2023, the foundation held more than 6.8 million shares (which translates to roughly 68.5 million shares following Nvidia’s most recent share split) valued at approximately $3.4 billion.
Assuming the foundation has continued to meet the 5 percent minimum payout rate required of nonprofits, its assets would have grown to about $9.1 billion by the end of 2024, according to FoundationMark CEO John Seitz. As of this July, he estimates the figure has climbed to around $10.7 billion.
The organization, which accumulated about two-thirds of its Nvidia shares during its first four years, is relatively unusual among large nonprofits for its heavy dependence on just one stock. “There’s about 120 or 130 foundations that have over $1 billion, and 12 to 15 of those have concentrated stock,” Seitz told Observer.
Similar single-stock nonprofits include one launched by Elon Musk, which primarily holds assets in the form of Tesla shares, and the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, established by a former Coca-Cola executive that holds a large amount of Coca-Cola stock. There are also a fair number of foundations that rely only on Berkshire Hathaway stock, noted Seitz.
Seitz warned that concentrating on one stock can be risky. “You’ve got these that have really done phenomenally well, and you don’t see the other ones,” he said. “The reason why you don’t see the other ones is because they’ve gone away.”
The Huang Foundation’s investment performance has closely mirrored the rise of Nvidia’s stock. Founded by Huang in the 1990s, Nvidia began as a maker of gaming-focused hardware before pivoting to A.I. chips—a move that propelled the company to staggering heights. It joined the $1 trillion market cap club just two years and now holds the title of the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.
Despite its rapid growth, the Huang Foundation remains low profile. The nonprofit has no official website and no paid employees. That kind of lean operation isn’t uncommon, according to Seitz. “Even when you get to these over $500 million foundations, only about half of them even have an office,” he said. “It’s not an outlier at all.”
Where does Jensen Huang dole out his donations?
Where the Huang Foundation chooses to allocate its funds follows a familiar pattern for a billionaire-led nonprofit. Much of its assets have been funneled into donor-advised funds (DAFs), a type of philanthropic holding account popular among the ultra-wealthy but often criticized for its lack of transparency. Unlike private foundations, which are required to distribute a minimum percentage of assets each year, money placed in DAFs can sit untouched indefinitely before being granted to charities.
In 2023, more than three-quarters of the Huang Foundation’s annual disbursement ($46 million)was directed to a DAF at Schwab Charitable. “So, we don’t know what actually happens to that $46 million,” said Seitz.
Still, the foundation’s past giving offers some clues about where Huang may eventually direct its growing fortune. His largest donations have typically favored higher education, including multimillion-dollar gifts to his alma maters, Stanford University and Oregon State University. One of the foundation’s most recent contributions was a $22.5 million donation to the California College of the Arts (CCA) earlier this year—the largest in the school’s history.