With $135 billion worth of Nvidia stock, will Jensen Huang cash out?

After leading Nvidia for 33 years, Jensen Huang’s departure has turned the spotlight to his Nvidia stock holdings worth over $100 billion. The fate of these shares has become a looming concern hanging over Nvidia’s stock price.

Jensen Huang currently owns about 812 million shares of Nvidia, valued at approximately $135 billion, making him the company’s largest individual shareholder. According to William Blair analysts this week, this massive holding has recently become a “significant drag” on Nvidia’s share price.

The market widely wonders when, and whether, Jensen Huang will choose to start large-scale selling. Harvard corporate governance expert Jesse Fried pointed out that as long as Huang is in possession of major undisclosed negative information that could depress the stock price, he cannot legally sell his shares. Nvidia is scheduled to release earnings next Tuesday. If any relevant negative news is disclosed then, it could lower some legal barriers to his selling.

Since Nvidia’s 1999 IPO, Jensen Huang has exercised considerable restraint with his share sales. According to data from Capital IQ and company filings, he has cumulatively sold shares worth about $3 billion. For most of his tenure, his annual cash-out amount rarely exceeded a few hundred million dollars. As Nvidia’s market capitalization surged past $3 trillion and $5 trillion thresholds, he sold about $713 million in shares in 2024 via pre-scheduled trading programs, and is set to increase this to around $1 billion in 2025. So far this year, he has not sold any shares.

His shareholding structure is relatively complex, spanning direct holdings, family trusts, and holding companies. Huang’s charitable foundation also holds about 59 million shares, worth over $9 billion at current prices. Unlike tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Larry Ellison, Huang has not pledged his shares as loan collateral—Nvidia explicitly prohibits executives from using stock as collateral for loans.

Whether Jensen Huang can freely sell his shares is constrained by two factors.

On the legal side, Jesse Fried says, “Once any major nonpublic negative information obtained while serving as CEO that could drive shares lower is publicly disclosed, Huang can begin selling stock.” He also points out that if Huang is in possession of undisclosed favorable information, he can sell when aware of it, as he cannot benefit from it. For any ongoing legal investigations, as long as the information remains nonpublic, his trading room remains restricted.

On the market side, the 812 million-share volume is equivalent to the total trading volume of Nvidia stock over six full trading days. This means if Huang were to begin large-scale selling, he would have to spread sales over several months to avoid a dramatic downward impact on the price.

In addition, Nvidia’s proxy statement notes that as of the end of January, Huang still had over $350 million in unvested or unexercised stock compensation. The largest portion of this, worth around $142 million, vested this March. However, since he has resigned, future performance-based incentives may no longer be applicable.

Departing founders often opt for a rapid sell-off, with many historical precedents. After being forced out of Apple in 1985, Steve Jobs sold nearly all his shares within months, keeping only one share to maintain shareholder meeting eligibility. Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, forced out in 2017, unloaded more than $2.5 billion worth of stock within about two months after insiders were allowed to sell post-Uber’s 2019 IPO. Steve Wynn, founder of casino chain Wynn Resorts, sold most of his $2.1 billion stake through private deals with two long-term institutional investors weeks after resigning in March 2018 due to sexual misconduct allegations (which he denied). Wall Street analysts broadly welcomed this, seeing it as removing an “overhang” on the stock and helping the company move forward unencumbered.

However, the scale of Jensen Huang’s shares dwarfs these examples. His $135 billion stake means any large-scale cash-out would necessarily be a prolonged process.

Jensen Huang has repeatedly described selling Nvidia shares as a “mistake.” At Davos this January, when BlackRock CEO Larry Fink mentioned Nvidia’s annualized compound return had reached 37%, Huang said his only regret was selling his shares too early.

He recalled that when Nvidia went public with a valuation of only $300 million, he sold some shares to buy his parents a Mercedes S-Class. “It was the most expensive car in the world,” he said. “They regret it.”