Halfway Through 2024, Nvidia Has Grown Its Market Cap by Nearly $2 Trillion: Here's Who Owns the Most Shares

We're only halfway through 2024, but one technology stock in particular has stood out amid an intense competitive environment.

Shares of artificial intelligence (AI) poster child Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) have soared by about 150% through the first six months of the year. The company has grown by nearly $2 trillion in market cap and recently joined Microsoft and Apple as the third company to exceed a $3 trillion market capitalization.

With Nvidia getting so much attention from Wall Street and retail investors, you might be wondering who has benefited the most from the company's meteoric rise -- and whether or not now would be a good time for you to join them by adding it to your portfolio.

Which employees own the most Nvidia shares?

Nvidia completed a 10-for-1 stock split earlier this month. This means that Nvidia's outstanding share count rose 10-fold while its stock price fell by the same multiple -- thereby leaving the valuation of the company unchanged.

Post split, Nvidia now has approximately 25 billion shares outstanding. The table below illustrates which employees own the most shares of the company.

Data source: Bloomberg.

Jensen Huang is by far the largest internal shareholder of Nvidia. While it's common for CEOs to have major ownership stakes in their companies, Huang's position stands out for different reasons.

Not only is he the CEO, he is also one of Nvidia's three co-founders and has been with the company for three decades. Generally speaking, founders of companies are some of their largest equity holders. And while a 3.5% stake may not seem like a lot for a founder, keep in mind that Nvidia is worth in excess of $3 trillion. As of the time of this writing, Huang's approximately 866 million shares are worth roughly $108 billion.

Outside of management, who else is a major Nvidia shareholder?

Beyond Nvidia's executive suite, a number of members on the board of directors are also material holders of the stock.

Mark Stevens is the second-largest individual owner of Nvidia stock behind Huang. Stevens spent time in management at Intel and later became a venture capital investor. Since he began serving on Nvidia's board in 2008, Stevens has amassed nearly 40 million shares -- a stake that's worth almost $5 billion.

Other notable venture capitalists on Nvidia's board include Harvey Jones, Tench Coxe, and Brooke Seawell. Each joined its board during the 1990s, and they have collectively accrued roughly 16 million shares.

Board of Directors in an office

Should you become an Nvidia shareholder?

Many of Nvidia's largest shareholders have either been working at the company or sitting on its board for a long time. In many cases, these executives have gathered their stakes over decades.

Take one of the other co-founders, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, as an example. Priem left Nvidia in 2003 and reportedly had sold off all of his shares by 2006. After having given away hundreds of millions in charitable donations over the years, he has an estimated net worth of roughly $30 million now. While that's not too shabby, had he held on to his shares, Priem's net worth would today be in the tens of billions of dollars.

Another prior investor in Nvidia was the Japanese holding company SoftBank. It sold its stake back in 2019. Had SoftBank held onto its position, its stake in Nvidia would be worth around $160 billion today.

The idea I'm trying to drive home is that owning a hot stock is not enough on its own to generate wealth. Investors need to have strong conviction in the company's management, its business prospects, and the markets in which the company operates. If you feel that way about Nvidia, the stock could be for you.

However, I'd encourage investors to monitor the business over time and double down when appropriate. It's entirely possible to build a small fortune owning winning stocks, and the best way to do that is almost always to hold onto them for a long time.

Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $757,001!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 24, 2024

Adam Spatacco has positions in Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.