Jensen Huang leaves Nvidia with a $132 billion stake — here’s when he can sell and why investors might not know: Chart of the Day
Jensen Huang lost his job, but not his shares. Soon, investors may no longer be able to see him selling it.
The board of directors of Nvidia (NVDA) accepted Huang’s resignation on November 11. It’s losing about $108 million in unvested shares, pocket change next to the roughly 812 million shares it retains, worth about $132 billion as of Friday’s close. This makes him Nvidia’s largest individual owner.
When an insider sells, Wall Street sometimes interprets it as a vote of no confidence in the company. When the founder of the world’s largest AI chipmaker sells, the entire market can follow.
“This is definitely a barrier to trading for the foreseeable future,” Liz Thomas, SoFi’s chief market strategist, told Yahoo Finance on Thursday.
Investors are already voting. Nvidia stock closed Friday at its lowest level since July 2025, about 32% below its October 6 record.
The clock starts now
Legally, Huang can sell now. For three months after his departure, he still counts as a company insider, so any significant sale requires a public notice filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The legal cap on these sales will not slow it down. Based on trading before the scandal, that amounts to about 600 million shares every three months, according to Yahoo Finance calculations. That’s more than eight times the shares he holds in his own name.
But only its own shares are easy to sell, and insider trading rules don’t expire in February.
The problem with hidden sales is that a former CEO might learn of bad news before the public. Trading on this subject is always illegal, with or without notice, and brokers keep records of every transaction, which regulators can audit.
Most of the pile doesn’t belong to him and he can’t move it alone
About 70 million shares, worth about $11 billion, are in Huang’s name, according to his SEC filings. The remaining $740 million, worth about $121 billion, is held in family trusts, including one he runs with his wife, Lori. This setup makes a quick sale difficult.
Even a full release is smaller than it looks. His total stake equates to less than six days of typical trading at Nvidia before the scandal, and Nvidia had $235 billion left from its buyout as of September 28, enough to absorb all the shares it owns.
Why a 2-week window in February became a priority
Nvidia typically releases its fourth-quarter results and files its annual report at the end of February. That leaves a gap of about two weeks after Huang’s prime period ends, and it has attracted attention online.
Selling before bad news comes to hand would still be illegal.
Leaving doesn’t erase his signature either. Huang signed off on Nvidia’s financial statements each quarter as CEO, and the quarter reported Tuesday ended Oct. 25, under his leadership.
Gn bussni
