Throughout the last few months Jensen Huang, CEO and co-founder of Nvidia, has seen his wealth grow at a delirious speed, unparalleled among technology entrepreneurs, which has allowed him to grow 98%. The percentage is striking. His background, not so much. If 2022 has been the year of artificial intelligence, a word that has fallen on the street and lively debates and billion-dollar investments, little wonder that the tycoon who has seen his fortune grow the fastest is the one at the helm of a multinational that can benefit from it.
And yet, the data is still spectacular.
What do the figures say? That Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, is considerably richer today than he was at the beginning of the year. And with enough we fell short. The Billionaires Index Bloomberg data shows that his fortune is around 28.3 billion dollars. It is still less than what Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg manage, to name three other magnates in the sector, but what really stands out for Huang’s heritage is not for its net worth (which also), but its evolution: the boom that has registered in a few months.
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How much has it grown? A spectacular 98%, according to published data by Bloomberg on Wednesday. Your tables show that your net worth is $28.3 billion with a “YTD change” (year to date returns) of about 14.5 billion. The percentage that makes Huang stand out in the global ranking is so resounding: there is no other billionaire in the technology sector, nor directly another billionaire from the US, who has seen his fortune grow at a faster rate in 2023 Its increase even exceeds that of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, whose assets grew a resounding 94% thanks to the results of the first trimester.
And what is the reason? To a large extent, expectations unleashed by AI. Much of Huang’s fortune is tied up with Nvidia through stock. And the GPU giant has been buoyed by the hope that it can be one of the companies to benefit the most from the ChatGPT boom and new technology. “We are in the iPhone moment of AI”, recognized the tycoon himself in March: “The impressive capabilities of generative AI have created a feeling of urgency for companies to reinvent their products and business models.”
Nvidia’s share price has experienced a noticeable rise for the last few months and there are those who speculate already with the possibility that it could reach all-time highs or even quintuple the value of its shares in 10 years. All because of the wave of artificial intelligence. In April Matt Phillips I already pointed out in Axios that the increase they had experienced up to then, of around 85%, made them the individual actions with the best evolution in the S&P index.
Is it all good news? Not quite. Nvidia’s good drift has helped it mitigate the damage it suffered in 2022, but not everything on its horizon is AI and not all the trends ahead are equally positive. One of its great challenges is in fact the “chip war” opened since last year between the United States and China, a key market for the company.
Joe Biden’s decision to toughen the requirements to export certain “made in the USA” technology to the Asian giant has directly affected him, forcing him first to stop the marketing in China of two of his most advanced products, the A100 and H100 GPUs, and then looking for ways not to give up their clients in the country. Bloomberg accurate that Nvidia’s sales there fell significantly (20%) during the fiscal year and after the US restrictions.
Cover image: nvidia
In Xataka: The evolution of the ten richest billionaires on the planet, in an illustrative graph
