NEW YORK – Jensen Huang got an expensive taste of the Democratic Party’s newfound political power on Nov 5.
The Nvidia CEO’s net worth fell by US$15.1 billion (S$19.3 billion) to US$150.9 billion as stocks tumbled following Democrats’ sweeping victories in the midterm elections. The loss dropped him to 13th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index from ninth.
Other big losers were SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who lost US$79.7 billion and US$10.1 billion, respectively.
Expectations that a Democrat-controlled House and Senate will work to constrain construction of data centres – a critical component of AI infrastructure – helped drive shares of semiconductor makers and suppliers of computing power lower. Nvidia tumbled 9.3%, the most since January 2025, while SpaceX fell 9% and Oracle dropped 6.9%.
All three men, especially Huang, are heavily exposed to the buildout of data centres to support the growing demands of artificial intelligence. Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia is the leading supplier of high-performance computer chips.
Musk’s SpaceX develops its own AI models and constructs data centers to run them, while Ellison’s Oracle has built a big business supplying computing power to others.
The 500 people on the wealth index lost a collective US$185 billion on Nov 5, the 14th-biggest one-day rout since Bloomberg began its ranking in 2012.
It comes after a period when tech billionaires were on track for their best year ever, accounting for 36% of the index’s total wealth amid AI’s relentless growth. BLOOMBERG
