In 2007, Jensen Huang Donated $12 Million Worth Of Nvidia Stock To His Foundation… Guess How That’s Turned Out

In 2007, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and his wife, Lori, donated 370,000 shares of Nvidia stock to launch their private charitable foundation. At the time, Nvidia was a rising but still relatively niche semiconductor company, best known for powering graphics cards in high-end gaming rigs. When they donated, the gifted shares were worth $12.6 million thanks to Nvidia’s then-market cap of around $15 billion. The Huangs’ gift was generous, but not particularly attention-grabbing in the world of big-ticket philanthropy.

As you may have heard, Nvidia is no longer a relatively niche semiconductor company. In just the last few years alone, Nvidia’s trajectory has been nothing short of a nuclear-powered missile to Mars. The company’s dominance in artificial intelligence and data center computing has catapulted its valuation past the biggest names in tech. Today, Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of approximately $3.5 trillion. That rise hasn’t just made Jensen Huang one of the wealthiest people alive (#12 by our latest count), it’s also transformed the foundation he and his wife quietly launched in 2007.

Despite having little public visibility, no website, and minimal staff, the foundation now sits in the same league as legacy institutions like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. It now ranks among the 15 largest foundations in America. Here’s a photo of Jensen with his family in May 2007, right around the time they made the donation (from left to right, daughter Madison, wife Lori, Jensen, and son Spencer):

The Original Gift

The Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation was formed in 2007 with a single donation: 370,000 shares of Nvidia stock, then worth $12.6 million. The Huangs made no grand announcement, and the foundation remained relatively quiet for years. But what made the gift unique wasn’t its size — it was the asset itself. Instead of cash, the Huangs donated stock in a company that would go on to become the centerpiece of the AI boom.

Over the next 17 years, Nvidia shares surged by more than 16,800%, fueled by exploding demand for GPUs, machine learning infrastructure, and large-scale data processing. Even after accounting for stock splits and dividend adjustments, those original shares alone are now worth more than $2.2 billion. And the Huangs weren’t done giving. According to filings, they continued contributing Nvidia stock to the foundation through their family trust, most recently donating 440,000 shares worth $60 million in early June 2025.

From Modest Office To Mega Foundation

The Huangs’ foundation has operated with a surprisingly low profile. As of 2023, it had no paid employees. It doesn’t have a website, public-facing grant database, or even confirmed leadership beyond what was mentioned in press releases. In February 2025, a chief operating officer was referenced in a release announcing a $22.5 million gift to California College of the Arts — but the foundation didn’t respond to questions about who he was or what role he played.

Still, the foundation’s balance sheet tells a remarkable story. By the end of 2023, it reported holding 68.5 million shares of Nvidia. FoundationMark, a firm that tracks nonprofit portfolios, estimates the foundation’s total assets have grown from $828 million just five years ago to around $9.2 billion today. That leap has propelled it into the upper tier of American philanthropy, despite operating with what appears to be near-zero overhead.

Where the Money Is Going

Like many tech-driven foundations, the Huangs have leaned heavily on donor-advised funds (DAFs) as an initial vehicle for giving. In 2023, 77% of the foundation’s disbursements — about $46 million — went to a Schwab-managed DAF. These accounts are popular among wealthy donors because they allow for an immediate tax deduction while delaying the actual deployment of funds. DAFs are not legally required to distribute assets on any specific timetable, nor do they need to publicly report where grants ultimately go.

The Huangs have also made a few high-profile gifts directly from the foundation. In 2022, they pledged $50 million to Oregon State University, their alma mater. And in early 2025, they announced the $22.5 million grant to California College of the Arts. But as the foundation’s assets continue to grow, so too will the required level of giving. Private foundations must distribute at least 5% of their assets annually. Based on FoundationMark’s projections, that means the Huangs will need to give away at least $369 million this year.

What Happens Next

Let’s say Nvidia’s market cap triples over the next decade, rising from $3.5 trillion to $10 trillion. That’s not outside the realm of possibility if the company maintains its dominance in AI hardware, data centers, autonomous systems, and future computing platforms. If the Huang Foundation simply held onto its current 68.5 million shares, those shares alone would be worth more than $30 billion. Add in future donations and potential appreciation of assets already sitting in donor-advised funds, and it’s plausible the foundation could surpass $35 billion in total assets.

At that level, the Huang Foundation would be approaching the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which currently has about $67 billion in assets but was built over decades by both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. If Nvidia reaches $10 trillion and the Huangs keep donating stock along the way, it’s entirely possible their foundation could become the second-largest — or even the single largest — private foundation in the world.

Of course, that assumes the market continues rewarding Nvidia. It also assumes the Huangs remain comfortable with keeping so much philanthropic firepower tied to one company. But if those conditions hold, the quiet little foundation they seeded in 2007 might not just rival the Rockefellers — it could eclipse them all.

And in the process, Jensen and Lori Huang may end up turning one of the greatest wealth-creation stories in tech history into one of the most impactful acts of philanthropy the world has ever seen.