Will Jensen Huang sell his $135bn of stock?

{"text":[[{"start":12.24,"text":"Jensen Huang did not sell many of his Nvidia shares during his 33 years leading the chipmaker at the centre of the AI boom. Now that he has stepped down, that could change."}],[{"start":23.12,"text":"Since Nvidia went public in 1999, Huang has sold about $3bn of Nvidia shares, according to Capital IQ data and company filings. Holding on to his stock has made him Nvidia’s largest individual shareholder, with about 812mn shares worth $135bn at Thursday’s close."}],[{"start":43.34,"text":"Even though Huang holds a less than 5 per cent stake in Nvidia, any sudden move to sell tens of billions of dollars’ worth of stock would unnerve investors."}],[{"start":52.28,"text":"But the prospect of lengthy legal investigations into his relationship with a Chinese executive at a major Nvidia customer could limit his ability to trade those shares, adding to what analysts at William Blair this week described as a “significant overhang on Nvidia shares in the near term”."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":68.1,"text":"For most of his tenure, Huang’s annual sales were modest, rarely more than a few hundred million dollars a year, before rising to $713mn in 2024 and $1bn in 2025 under pre-arranged trading plans as Nvidia’s market value climbed past $3tn and then $5tn."}],[{"start":87.56,"text":"He holds the shares directly and through family trusts and holding companies. Huang’s charitable foundation separately holds about 59mn shares, worth more than $9bn at today’s prices."}],[{"start":99.04,"text":"Revelations that the Nvidia co-founder allegedly had multiple affairs have triggered speculation about the future of his marriage to Lori Huang, his wife of more than 40 years. The couple met as teenagers while studying at Oregon State University in the early 1980s and married several years before Nvidia was founded."}],[{"start":117.96,"text":"Filings show that the vast majority of the former Nvidia CEO’s shares are held in entities that both he and his wife control."}],[{"start":125.76,"text":"Unlike fellow tech billionaires such as Elon Musk and Larry Ellison, Huang has not borrowed against his shares, as Nvidia bars its executives from pledging stock as collateral for loans."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":136.8,"text":"Huang has not sold any shares this year, the data shows. Nvidia’s results next Tuesday could clear the way for the former chief executive to begin selling, provided he holds no other insider information, lawyers say."}],[{"start":148.68,"text":"Jesse Fried, a corporate governance expert at Harvard, said that Huang’s insider information would prevent him from selling until any details that might cause the stock price to fall were made public."}],[{"start":159.08,"text":"“Huang can start selling as soon as any negative material non-public information he learned while CEO is disclosed,” Fried said."}],[{"start":165.76,"text":"He is “OK to sell knowing undisclosed positive information, because [he] can’t profit from that,” Fried said."}],[{"start":171.9,"text":"Nvidia’s proxy filing shows that at the end of January, Huang was sitting on in stock awards that had not yet vested or been earned that were then worth more than $350mn. The biggest slug of those awards, worth $142mn according to the filing, vested in March, while he has received more throughout the year."}],[{"start":191.56,"text":"However, the filing suggests that at Nvidia’s current share price, there was still more than $100mn worth of earned stock that had still not vested. After resigning, however, he may no longer be in line for this or other additional performance-related awards."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":206.8,"text":"Founders who have left on bad terms have often sold out quickly. Steve Jobs famously sold all but one of his Apple shares within months of being forced out in 1985. He retained the single share so he could continue to attend shareholder meetings."}],[{"start":220.68,"text":"Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, ousted as chief executive in 2017, sold his entire stake of more than $2.5bn, within about two months of insiders being freed to sell after the ridesharing company’s 2019 listing."}],[{"start":235.16,"text":"Steve Wynn, founder of casino chain Wynn Resorts, also sold out entirely in March 2018, weeks after resigning over allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denied. He sold most of his $2.1bn stake in a private sale to two long-term institutional investors."}],[{"start":252.16,"text":"Wall Street analysts welcomed the sale at the time, saying it removed an “overhang” and let the company move on."}],[{"start":258.28,"text":"Any sale by Huang of his $135bn worth of shares will probably take much longer. Huang’s 812mn shares equal about six days of Nvidia’s entire trading volume, meaning sales would need to be staggered over months to avoid depressing the share price."}],[{"start":273.88,"text":"Huang himself has previously framed selling as a mistake. At Davos in January, after Larry Fink noted Nvidia shares had returned a compounded 37 per cent annually to shareholders, Huang said his only regret was selling stock early."}],[{"start":290.2,"text":"He said that right after the IPO, when Nvidia was valued at $300mn, he sold a chunk of shares to buy his parents a Mercedes S-Class sedan. “It is the most expensive car in the world,” he said. “They regret it.”"}],[{"start":310.04,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1794579187_6353.mp3"}