Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang grew as much as US$4.2-billion richer after the company’s latest earnings and forecast beat estimates.
The shares surged as much as 10% in aftermarket trading, boosting Huang’s total fortune to $46.1-billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. If that gain can be sustained, Huang is poised to end up among the world’s 25 wealthiest individuals, the index shows.
Huang’s 3.5% stake in Nvidia makes up the vast majority of his fortune. The company’s shares soared during the Covid-19 pandemic — when the crypto boom drove up usage of its chips for mining — before falling by almost two-thirds over the course of a year and shooting back up. So far this year, they have more than tripled in value with the rise of AI demand.
Huang co-founded the firm in 1993 and helped transform it from a maker of videogame graphics chips to the now-dominant supplier of accelerators that train AI software.
Read: Nvidia soars on AI optimism
The company doubled revenue in the last quarter and offered a bullish outlook for growing both demand and supply over the coming year. It contracts out its chips fabrication to Taiwan’s TSMC and Korea’s Samsung Electronics. — Anders Melin, with Kristine Servando, (c) 2023 Bloomberg LP