Jensen Huang saw his net wealth increase by $9.6 billion on Thursday following a major surge in Nvidia’s share price that has lifted the wealth of the world’s richest billionaires, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
The Nvidia CEO saw his overall wealth increase to $69.2 billion after shares in the California chip maker he founded in 1993 jumped more than 16% after it outstripped expectations in posting exceptional fourth-quarter results.
Nvidia’s
NVDA,
results saw the company report a 265% jump in its sales, to $22 billion in the three months ending on Jan. 28, as Huang said the artificial intelligence industry has now reached a “tipping point” that has seen use of the technology go “mainstream.”
The surge in Nvidia’s share price added $277 billion to the company’s market capitalization, in what has now become the biggest single day increase in market history, ahead of Meta’s $197 billion surge earlier this month.
Huang now ranks as the world’s 21st richest individual, having risen two places on the list of the world’s wealthiest people in a single day, while trailing closely behind American socialite Julia Koch, who inherited billions from her husband David Koch following his death in 2019.
The Taiwan born technology 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, at a Denny’s roadside diner in East San Jose.
The 61-year-old tech chief has seen his wealth increase by $25.2 billion in 2024 so far, in line with a 63% rally in Nvidia’s share price in the year-to-date, driven by excitement around AI that has driven a boom in stock markets this year.
This surge has seen Huang make a rapid ascent up the ranks of the world’s richest individuals, in a phenomenal rise that has seen Nvidia chief jump from 128th place at the start of 2023 to 21st place now.
Nvidia’s rally also boosted the net worth of an array of the world’s top billionaires, as shares in a variety of the world’s top tech companies were also lifted by the surge.
Taiwanese billionaire Charles Liang who founded Supermicro in 1993, was the largest beneficiary from the surge in Nvidia’s share price, in seeing his net worth increase by a third to $7.6 billion due to his 12% stake in Nvidia.
At the top of the rankings, the world’s richest individual Elon Musk has seen his net worth fall $17.5 billion in 2024 so far, to $212 billion, as rivals Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault have both seen their wealth piles increase by billions over the same period of time.
This story originally appeared on Marketwatch
