Nvidia founder Jensen Huang’s exit from the chipmaking giant may cost him a whopping $108 million in stock awards!While the amount, almost Rs 900 crore in INR terms, sounds huge, it is only a tiny fraction of the massive fortune he has built over 33 years at the company. With an estimated net worth of $144.5 billion, the Nvidia co-founder is set to give up just 0.07% of his wealth following his exit.Huang’s departure comes at a time when Nvidia shares have taken a hit.The company’s market value fell below $4 trillion for the first time since 2025 following news of his resignation. However, despite the fall, Huang’s biggest source of wealth remains his existing shareholding, valued at around $135 billion.The $108 million he is set to lose comes from stock awards that have not yet vested. Under Nvidia’s equity compensation policy, executives forfeit their unvested restricted stock units (RSUs) when they leave the company.Huang held around 346,000 such units and was expected to receive about 310,000 shares under the company’s equity incentive plan, provided certain performance targets were met.Following his exit, he will forfeit these unvested awards.Jensen Huang has already slipped out of the top 10 of Forbes’ richest people list, with his wealth declining by $2.8 billion, or 1.97%. According to Nvidia’s annual report and proxy statement for fiscal year 2026, Huang received total compensation of $36,343,830 during the year, down from $49.87 million in the previous financial year.His compensation package included a base salary of around $1.5 million, stock awards worth approximately $24.8 million and $6 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation. The remaining amount was classified as other compensation.
Where does Huang’s $144.5 billion fortune come from?
Almost all of Huang’s wealth is tied to Nvidia shares. Unlike several other technology leaders, he has built his fortune mainly through owning the company’s stock rather than stock options or other executive benefits.He owns around 812 million Nvidia shares, worth approximately $135 billion at Thursday’s closing price. This makes him the company’s largest individual shareholder. His holding represents less than 5% of Nvidia, while his voting stake stands at around 3.5%.According to Bloomberg’s wealth index, Nvidia shares account for nearly 97% of his total fortune.His holdings are spread across shares owned directly by him, family trusts and holding companies. His charitable foundation separately holds around 59 million Nvidia shares, valued at more than $9 billion at current prices.Despite his substantial holding, Huang does not have special voting rights because Nvidia has only one class of shares.His salary and other cash payments form only a small part of his wealth. He received around $7.5 million in cash compensation in each of the past two years.
Huang has already pocketed $3 billion
Although Huang has held on to most of his Nvidia shares, he has sold around $3 billion worth of stock since the company went public in 1999, according to Capital IQ data and company filings.For most of his time as chief executive, his annual share sales remained relatively small, rarely crossing a few hundred million dollars. That changed as Nvidia’s valuation climbed during the AI boom.Huang sold around $713 million worth of shares in 2024, followed by approximately $1 billion in 2025. These sales were made through pre-arranged trading plans as Nvidia’s market value crossed $3 trillion and later $5 trillion.He has not sold any shares so far this year, according to the data.
Evolution of Nvidia
Can Huang turn his shares into cash
With Huang no longer leading Nvidia, attention is also turning to whether he will begin selling more of his shares. However, offloading such a large holding may not be easy.His share transactions could be affected by potential lengthy legal investigations into his relationship with a Chinese executive at a major Nvidia customer. Analysts at William Blair have described the matter as a “significant overhang on Nvidia shares in the near term”.There are also restrictions on when he can trade because of information he may have received while heading the company.Jesse Fried, a corporate governance expert at Harvard, said Huang would have to wait until material negative information that could affect Nvidia’s share price became public before selling.“Huang can start selling as soon as any negative material non-public information he learned while CEO is disclosed,” Fried said.He is “OK to sell knowing undisclosed positive information, because [he] can’t profit from that,” Fried said.Nvidia’s results next Tuesday could clear the way for Huang to start selling, provided he does not hold any other insider information, lawyers said.The size of his holding is another challenge. His 812 million shares are equivalent to around six days of Nvidia’s total trading volume. Selling a large number of shares at once could put pressure on the stock price, meaning any sale would probably have to be spread over several months.Huang has also avoided borrowing against his Nvidia shares. Unlike some other technology billionaires, he has not pledged his stock as collateral for loans, as Nvidia does not allow its executives to do so.
