JENSEN Huang added nearly US$12 billion to his fortune on Wednesday (Jul 31), a record tally to match Nvidia’s record day.
It was the biggest one-day US dollar gain for Nvidia’s co-founder and chief executive officer, exceeding the US$9.6 billion he made on Feb 22 when the chipmaker’s shares spiked after strong earnings, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It also pushed him back above the US$100 billion mark for the first time in a week, bringing his total net worth to US$102.8 billion.
Nvidia has been on a wild ride recently as investors suddenly rotated out of high-flying technology stocks ahead of an expected Federal Reserve rate cut in September. That reversed on Wednesday after competitor Advanced Micro Devices gave an upbeat revenue forecast, reflecting strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI). Nvidia shares surged 13 per cent and added a record US$329 billion in value, bringing its year-to-date gain to 136 per cent.
Huang, 61, is the world’s 14th-richest person, just behind Michael Dell. He has been steadily capitalising on Nvidia’s outperformance, unloading stock as part of a 10b5-1 trading plan. He sold shares worth nearly US$169 million in June, the most he’d netted in a single month, as the insatiable demand for the chips used to power AI drove the stock to fresh peaks and is set to surpass that level in July.
He’s not the only insider selling. Company executives and directors unloaded more than US$700 million of shares in the first half of this year, a US dollar amount that dwarfs any other period in company history. BLOOMBERG
