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Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang has steadily moved up the Bloomberg Billionaires list as the stock of the company he runs has risen. Even after a slight sell-off in the shares after announcing earnings, Nvidia’s stock is up 1,280% in the past five years. That compares to an 84% rise in the S&P 500 over the same period. Huang’s net worth is $157 billion.
Nvidia was primarily a graphics chip company for most of the years since its founding in 1993. In 2018, it began to release more powerful chips. That set it on the path to becoming the dominant chip provider for artificial intelligence platforms. Today, it owns 92% of the AI chip market. Its Blackwell product is considered the state-of-the-art AI engine.
Huang has been with Nvidia since its founding. He owns about 3.8% of Nvidia’s shares. He recently ended a period during which he sold $1 billion worth of the stock.
The Most Valuable Company in the World
Obviously, Huang’s fortune is based on the market cap of Nvidia. At $4.49 trillion, it is the most valuable company in the world. It is well ahead of number two Apple, which has a market cap of $3.95 trillion. Number three Microsoft has a market cap of $3.56 trillion.
Nvidia’s most recent quarter was unbelievably successful, even if shares sold off after the announcement. Revenue rose 62% to $57 billion, exceeding Wall Street expectations. Per-share earnings were up 67% to $1.30. Its guidance for the current quarter was that revenue would hit $65 billion, also better than expectations. Perhaps most importantly, Huang said Nvidia’s business was surging and the AI revolution showed no sign of slowing as some investors feared it would. “Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out,” he said, adding, “AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once.”
Huang’s net worth only has to inch up slightly to move him into eighth place on the Bloomberg Billionaire list. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer holds that spot. His net worth of $166 billion is primarily based on Microsoft’s stock price.