Nvidia’s surprise boom lifts CEO, three board members to billionaires

• Published On: 03 January 2025 at 20:10

Nvidia Corp.'s meteoric rise in 2024 has propelled CEO Jensen Huang into the billionaire club, as have three of the chipmaker's longest-serving board members.

Tench Coxe, who has served on Nvidia's board since its inception, now has a net worth of $5.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Coxe, 66, is the company's third-largest individual shareholder, holding over 32 million shares.

Mark Stevens, another Nvidia board member, is the world's 298th richest person, worth $9.3 billion. According to Bloomberg, Harvey Jones, the third board member in this exclusive club, owns a $1 billion stake in the company and has sold more than $300 million in shares.

The wealth increase among Nvidia's board members is an unusual occurrence, especially given that none of them are company founders or members of a family dynasty. Nvidia's stock rose 171% in 2024, owing to rising demand for its artificial intelligence chips, making it the S&P 500 Index's second-best performer.

All three billionaire directors have been on Nvidia's board for over three decades. According to Bloomberg data, together with Huang, they have a net worth of more than $130 billion, putting Nvidia among the top ten wealthiest corporate boards worldwide.

CEO Jensen Huang, now the world's 12th richest person, saw his fortune increase by more than $70 billion in 2024, reaching $114.4 billion. Brooke Seawell, the fifth member of the Nvidia board, is also on the verge of becoming a billionaire with a $700 million stake in the company.

Coxe's journey began in 1993, when he and Sutter Hill Ventures invested in Nvidia at its inception. This early bet resulted in Coxe and Stevens, a Sequoia Capital partner at the time, joining the company's board. Their investments in what was once a little-known startup have grown into massive fortunes.

Coxe, a Dartmouth graduate and former All-Ivy squash player, started his career at Lehman Brothers before joining Sutter Hill in 1987. Nvidia became a defining success for Coxe, who also owned stakes in other well-known technology companies such as Snowflake Inc.

Nvidia's board now ranks among the world's richest, trailing only Tesla Inc., whose board includes Elon Musk and billionaire directors like Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and James Murdoch.