Nvidia’s stock surge pushes CEO’s fortune as high as $46 billion

Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang grew as much as $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 use 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 company in 1993 and helped transform it from a maker of video-game graphics chips to the now-dominant supplier of accelerators that train AI software.

The company doubled revenue in the past quarter and offered a bullish outlook for growing both demand and supply over the coming year. It contracts out its chips fabrication to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co.