Nvidia gave CEO Jensen Huang a 60% pay hike to $34 million last year

His compensation consisted of $26.7 million in stock awards, $4 million in cash bonuses, and $2.5 million for other expenses, including residential security, and car and driver.

Huang’s payday bonanza came as Nvidia’s share price sustained a rally on the back of the AI frenzy.

Demand for Nvidia’s chips is so high that Huang had to assure analysts in his fourth-quarter earnings call that the company was allocating them “fairly.”

Nvidia is not set to report first-quarter results until next week, but it’s already dominating the earnings season with its AI chips, Business Insider’s Matthew Fox reported recently.

The demand for AI chips has sent Nvidia’s share price tripling in the past year, making the $2.3 trillion company the third-most valuable company in the world after Microsoft and Apple.

Nvidia’s share price surge has also boosted the personal wealth of Huang, who is now the 18th-richest man in the world, with a fortune of $80.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This is mainly thanks to Huang’s 3.8% stake in the company.

Huang is not the only Nvidia executive seeing a major rise in compensation.

The compensation for Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer, rose by about 22% to $13.3 million last year.

Rank-and-file staff also saw their pay rise, with the median employee taking home $266,939 in fiscal 2024, which was 17% more than the year before.

Nvidia’s share price closed 1.1% higher at $913.56 on Tuesday. The stock is up 85% so far this year and has gained over 200% over the past 12 months.