Invidia became the first public company to break $5 trillion after its chips helped power the generative artificial intelligence boom. Jensen Huang’s rise now carries a second number with it: about $143 billion in stock holdings after Monday’s decline in shares.
Nvidia and $5 trillion
Nvidia was founded in 1993. By 2017, it was best known for graphics processing units used in video games, and Huang’s holdings were worth about $659 million.
That shift moved fast in the middle of the past decade. Huang single-mindedly pursued chips for generative artificial intelligence and related innovations, and Nvidia later became the first $1 trillion chip maker in 2023 before climbing to the $5 trillion mark.
Broadcom, Micron Technology, and Henry Samueli
The wealth surge did not stop with Nvidia. Broadcom sells networking chips needed for A.I. data centers and helps companies design chips for A.I. calculations, while Henry Samueli holds Broadcom shares worth about $26 billion.
Micron Technology has also been transformed from a frequent money-loser into a $1 trillion company. David Yoffie said, “Before generative A.I., semiconductors were not a sexy business, and were never a place for C.E.O.s to make fast money.”
Jensen Huang and Alice Huang
Yoffie also said, “In the last three years, he became a rock star, which apparently attracted the same kind of attention as all rock stars.” On Sunday, Huang admitted to entanglements with a Chinese executive who goes by Alice Huang, and U.S. intelligence has determined that Alice Huang is a Chinese spy.
A Nvidia spokeswoman declined to comment. Andy Grove never held shares worth more than a few hundred million dollars, while Gordon Moore was the one prominent billionaire among the chip industry’s pioneers, which shows how far Huang’s wealth has moved beyond the earlier semiconductor era.
The unresolved issue is what specific entanglements Huang admitted to with Alice Huang, and that question now sits beside the valuation milestone that turned him into one of the clearest faces of the AI boom.
