Jensen Huang saw his net wealth increase by $9.6 billion on Thursday following a sharp rise in Nvidia’s stock price that boosted the wealth of the world’s richest billionaires, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
The Nvidia CEO saw his overall wealth rise to $69.2 billion after shares of the California-based chipmaker he founded in 1993 jumped more than 16% after beating expectations by posting stellar fourth-quarter results .
Nvidia’s NVDA,
The results saw the company post a 265% increase in its sales, to $22 billion in the three months ended January 28, as Huang said the AI industry had now reached a “point critical” that has seen the use of technology go “mainstream.”
Nvidia’s stock price surge added $277 billion to the company’s market capitalization, in what became the largest single-day increase in market history, ahead of a $197 billion surge in Meta earlier this month.
Huang is now the 21st richest individual in the world, having risen two places on the list of the world’s richest people in a single day, falling just behind American socialite Julia Koch, who inherited billions from her husband David Koch after his death in 2019.
The Taiwan-born tech entrepreneur still owns a 3.51% stake in Nvidia, having started the semiconductor maker more than 30 years ago following a meeting with his two co-founders, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, in a Denny’s restaurant down the street in East San Jose.
The 61-year-old tech chief has seen his wealth rise by $25.2 billion so far in 2024, in line with a 63% rally in Nvidia’s share price year-to-date, driven by enthusiasm for artificial intelligence led to a boom in stock markets this year.
This surge has seen Huang make a meteoric rise among the world’s richest people, in a phenomenal rise that has seen the Nvidia boss rise from 128th place at the start of 2023 to 21st place now.
Nvidia’s rally also boosted the net worth of a number of the world’s top billionaires, as shares of a number of the world’s top technology companies were also lifted by the surge.
Taiwanese billionaire Charles Liang, who founded Supermicro in 1993, has been the biggest beneficiary of Nvidia’s share price surge, seeing his net worth rise by a third to $7.6 billion thanks to his 12% stake. % in Nvidia.
At the top of the list, the world’s richest individual, Elon Musk, has seen his net worth fall by $17.5 billion so far in 2024, to $212 billion, while rivals Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault have both seen their wealth increase by billions over the same period. of time.