Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang could soon be richer than Warren Buffett—he's worth $142 billion now
Huang, 63, has a $142 billion net worth — including a $27.6 billion increase since January 1 — according to a Bloomberg estimate on Wednesday evening. Much of his wealth comes from his roughly 3.5% stake in Nvidia, which is currently the world's most valuable public company.
Nvidia's market cap briefly passed $4 trillion on Wednesday, making it the first to ever reach that benchmark, and its stock is up roughly 22%, year-to-date. In the technology industry's artificial intelligence arms race, Nvidia's computer chips have become valuable components for multiple leading AI developers.
The company currently has a market cap of $4 trillion. Its market valuation could peak near $6 trillion, Loop Capital analyst Ananda Baruah said in a client note on Wednesday, according to Forbes.Buffett's $144 billion estimated net worth has also grown since January 1 — by $2.19 billion, according to Bloomberg. His conglomerate holding company Berkshire Hathaway has performed well in 2025 — its stock is up approximately 5%, year-to-date — but given Nvidia's growth rate, Huang could soon overtake Buffett on the list of world's richest people.
Buffett, 94, has also given away some of his wealth. He recently donated $6 billion to five different charities, and has now given over $60 billion of his fortune away over the past two decades — a number that's "substantially more than my entire net worth in 2006," Buffett announced in a press release on June 27. (Buffett's net worth that year was $46 billion, and he was the world's second-wealthiest person, behind Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, according to Forbes.)
Of course, Huang's net worth isn't guaranteed to surpass Buffett's. Despite Nvidia's year-to-date stock growth, the business has experienced large market swings in both directions in 2025.
Nvidia's shares dropped 17% in one day on January 27, after a report that Chinese AI lab DeepSeek used reduced-capacity chips from Nvidia to power its then-new language model, sparking panic in investors. It was the biggest single-day drop for a U.S. company in history, with Nvidia losing almost $600 billion in market cap, CNBC reported at the time.
The company's stock then fell 9% in one day on March 3, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on Mexico, where the company hosts a portion of its manufacturing. But the company has been on a winning streak on Wall Street since June, perhaps a sign that investors' concerns have quelled — at least, for now.
Huang co-founded Nvidia with fellow engineers Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem in 1993, when he was just 30 years old. None of them had never run a company before, which may have worked in their favor, Huang told the "Acquired" podcast, in an episode that aired on October 15, 2023.
"If we realized the pain and suffering, just how vulnerable you're going to feel, and the challenges that you're going to endure, the embarrassment and the shame, and the list of all the things that go wrong, I don't think anybody would start a company," said Huang.
"I think that's the superpower of an entrepreneur," he added. "They don't know how hard it is, and they only ask themselves, 'How hard can it be?'"
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
44 minutes ago
- CNBC
How the U.S.-EU trade deal impacts America's imports overall: Tariff simulator
A tariff simulator shows a dramatic drop in global exports to the U.S. as a result of President Donald Trump new trade deal with the European Union. On Sunday, Trump announced a trade deal with the EU, following discussions with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Trump said that the deal imposes a 15% tariff on most European goods to the U.S., including cars. According to the Tariff Simulator by the online data visualization and distribution platform, The Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), the forecasted global exports to the U.S. in 2027 are expected to drop by more than 46% compared to the average of the last three years, or $2.68 trillion. The forecasted U.S. exports to the world in 2027 are expected to increase by 12% compared to the average of the last three years, or $1.59 trillion. The forecast builds on an extended gravity model designed to anticipate how trade may be reconfigured in response to the announced trade deal between the US and the EU alone. This forecast does not include the impact of all the broad tariff increases set to be imposed on Aug. 1. "While the U.S. is imposing tariffs on the world, the world is not imposing tariffs on each other," explained Cesar Hidalgo, economics professor at the Toulouse School of Economicsdirector for the Center of Collective Learning, and founder of Datawheel, which built the OEC Tariff Simulator. "The point here is that countries will have a natural tendency to rewire their trade relationships away from the U.S. in many of these scenarios, he added. "This is true for most countries, except for Mexico and Canada, which are too integrated with the United States and are unable to rewire as quickly as less integrated countries." Hidalgo explained the tariff impact using Germany as an example, "In the early 2025 scenario where there were no new tariffs, exports from Germany to the US were forecasted to go from $133B (2023) to $155B in 2027. With the 15% tariff framework, exports from Germany to the US are forecasted now to go up from $133B 2023 to $149B 2027," said Hidalgo. "Exports are down with respect to what we would have expected if tariffs would have remained the same as they were on January 1st of 2025." Under the 15% tariff scenario projected by the Tariff Simulator, the U.S. will import more from UK ($22.5 billion), France ($10.2 billion), and Spain ($5.65 billion) and less from China (-$485 billion), Canada (-$300 billion), and Mexico (-238 billion). As a result of the decrease in Chinese exports to the U.S. under this scenario, China is expected to import more from Russia ($70 billion), Vietnam ($34.4 billion), and Saudi Arabia ($28 billion) than the U.S. Chinese imports from the U.S. are expected to drop by $101 billion. Logistics experts have warned for months that even with tariff rates at lower rates than the original "reciprocal" rates announced in April, the products are still expensive. The layering of the tariffs will make many products more expensive to import and companies will forego shipments. Retail executives say the result would be a lack of product diversity on U.S. shelves, something American consumers have grown accustomed to. Andrew Abbott, CEO of niche ocean carrier Atlantic Container Line, says the resolution of the tariff levels will be the deciding factor for some European shippers. "I have seen some ocean bookings of high-value products (construction equipment, agricultural equipment, aerospace, transformers, etc.) have put all bookings on hold," said Abbott. "It all depends on the tariff rate. For example, a U.S. customer buying a $300,000 piece of machinery could potentially have $90,000 in tariffs assessed on it, so this is why some companies are waiting until a tariff rate is definitively set," he said. "Companies bringing in low-valued items, on the other hand, are continuing to order product." Based on trade data compiled and analyzed by the OEC, the bills of lading — the receipts for the containers detailing the product and company information — show IKEA is the top U.S. company importing from the EU at 28%. Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits was next at 9%, followed by Continental Tire (4%), Bosch (4%), Dole Food Co. (3%), and Diageo (2.3%) as the top importers. Examining the top EU exports to the U.S. by product category reveals that furniture leads the list at 11%, followed by rubber tires at 7%, bedspreads at 6%, and wine at 5%.
Bloomberg
44 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
TDK Closely Monitoring Global Tariff Impact
The Asia Trade Tokyo-based TDK, one of the biggest suppliers of iPhone batteries, says it is closely monitoring the tariff impact globally due to their worldwide operations. CEO Noboru Saito spoke exclusively with Bloomberg's Shery Ahn in Tokyo about their business outlook. (Source: Bloomberg)
an hour ago
US and China to talk trade with eye on Trump-Xi summit later this year
WASHINGTON -- When top U.S. and Chinese officials meet in Stockholm, they are almost certain to agree to at least leaving tariffs at the current levels while working toward a meeting between their presidents later this year for a more lasting trade deal between the world's two largest economies, analysts say. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng are set to hold talks for the third time this year — this round in the Swedish capital, nearly four months after President Donald Trump upset global trade with his sweeping tariff proposal, including an import tax that shot up to 145% on Chinese goods. 'We have the confines of a deal with China,' Trump said Friday before leaving for Scotland. Bessent told MSNBC on Wednesday that the two countries after talks in Geneva and London have reached a 'status quo,' with the U.S. taxing imported goods from China at 30% and China responding with a 10% tariff, on top of tariffs prior to the start of Trump's second term. 'Now we can move on to discussing other matters in terms of bringing the economic relationship into balance,' Bessent said. He was referring to the U.S. running a $295.5 billion trade deficit last year. The U.S. seeks an agreement that would enable it to export more to China and shift the Chinese economy more toward domestic consumer spending. The Chinese embassy in Washington said Beijing hopes 'there will be more consensus and cooperation and less misperception' coming out of the talks. With an eye on a possible leaders' summit, Stockholm could provide some answers as to the timeline and viability of that particular goal ahead of a possible meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. 'The meeting will be important in starting to set the stage for a fall meeting between Trump and Xi,' said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator and now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. 'Beijing will likely insist on detailed preparations before they agree to a leaders' meeting.' In Stockholm, the two sides are likely to focus on commercial announcements to be made at a leaders' summit as well as agreements to address 'major irritants,' such as China's industrial overcapacity and its lack of control over chemicals used to make fentanyl, also to be announced when Xi and Trump should meet, Cutler said. Sean Stein, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said Stockholm could be the first real opportunity for the two governments to address structural reform issues including market access in China for U.S. companies. What businesses will be seeking coming out of Stockholm would largely be 'the atmosphere' — how the two sides characterize the discussions. They will also look for clues about a possible leaders' summit because any real deal will hinge on the two presidents meeting each other, he said. In Stockholm, Beijing will likely demand the removal of the 20% fentanyl-related tariff that Trump imposed earlier this year, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based Stimson Center. This round of the U.S.-China trade dispute began with fentanyl, when Trump in February imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods, citing that China failed to curb the outflow of the chemicals used to make the drug. The following month, Trump added another 10% tax for the same reason. Beijing retaliated with extra duties on some U.S. goods, including coal, liquefied natural gas, and farm products such as beef, chicken, pork and soy. In Geneva, both sides climbed down from three-digit tariffs rolled out following Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs in April, but the U.S. kept the 20% 'fentanyl' tariffs, in addition to the 10% baseline rate — to which China responded by keeping the same 10% rate on U.S. products. These across-the-board duties were unchanged when the two sides met in London a month later to negotiate over non-tariff measures such as export controls on critical products. The Chinese government has long protested that American politicians blame China for the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. but argued the root problem lies with the U.S. itself. Washington says Beijing is not doing enough to regulate precursor chemicals that flow out of China into the hands of drug dealers. In July, China placed two fentanyl ingredients under enhanced control, a move seen as in response to U.S. pressure and signaling goodwill. Gabriel Wildau, managing director at the consultancy Teneo, said he doesn't expect any tariff to go away in Stockholm but that tariff relief could be part of a final trade deal. 'It's possible that Trump would cancel the 20% tariff that he has explicitly linked with fentanyl, but I would expect the final tariff level on China to be at least as high as the 15-20% rate contained in the recent deals with Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam,' Wildau said. China's industrial overcapacity is as much a headache for the United States as it is for the European Union. Even Beijing has acknowledged the problem but suggested it might be difficult to address. America's trade imbalance with China has decreased from a peak of $418 billion in 2018, according to the Census Bureau. But China has found new markets for its goods and as the world's dominant manufacturer ran a global trade surplus approaching $1 trillion last year — somewhat larger than the size of the U.S. overall trade deficit in 2024. And China's emergence as a manufacturer of electric vehicles and other emerging technologies has suddenly made it more of a financial and geopolitical threat for those same industries based in the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea. 'Some enterprises, especially manufacturing enterprises, feel more deeply that China's manufacturing capabilities are too strong, and Chinese people are too hardworking. Factories run 24 hours a day,' Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Thursday when hosting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Beijing. 'Some people think this will cause some new problems in the balance of supply and demand in world production.' 'We see this problem too,' Li said. Bessent also said the Stockholm talks could address Chinese purchases of Russian and Iranian oil. However, Wildau of Teneo said China could demand some U.S. security concessions in exchange, such as a reduced U.S. military presence in East Asia and scaled-back diplomatic support for Taiwan and the Philippines. This would likely face political pushback in Washington. The Stockholm talks will be 'geared towards building a trade agreement based around Chinese purchase commitments and pledges of investment in the U.S. in exchange for partial relief from U.S. tariffs and export controls,' Wildau said. He doubts there will be a grand deal. Instead, he predicts 'a more limited agreement based around fentanyl.' 'That,' he said, 'is probably the preferred outcome for China hawks in the Trump administration, who worry that an overeager Trump might offer too much to Xi.'
