A rising valuation of NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) in 2024 has helped boost the wealth of Jensen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of the company that was once created inside a Denny's restaurant.

What Happened: Nvidia stock has risen significantly over the last several years, thanks to a boom of the artificial intelligence sector and the company's dominant market share for several related items.

While shares of Nvidia have fallen in recent months after quarterly earnings, the stock remains up over 119% year-to-date as seen on the Benzinga Pro chart below.

Nvidia is currently valued at $2.60 trillion, which comes 16 months after passing a $1 billion market capitalization.

Huang has a wealth of $90.5 billion, ranking 18th according to Bloomberg. While Huang hasn't cracked the top 10 list yet and would currently need to hit a wealth of $130 billion, the Nvidia co-founder is one of the fastest risers among the world's richest people.

Huang's wealth is up $46.4 billion year-to-date in 2024.

That figure is more than the combined $41.83 billion gained by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. Musk, Bezos and Gates currently rank first, second and fifth, respectively, with the current wealth and year-to-date gains.

• Elon Musk: $237 billion, +$7.73 billion year-to-date
• Jeff Bezos: $195 billion, +$17.9 billion year-to-date
• Bill Gates: $157 billion, +$16.2 billion year-to-date

The gain by Huang is one of the largest year-to-date gains, trailing only Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is up $49.9 billion and listed fourth at $178 billion.

Seventeen of the top 18 richest people have added to their wealth in 2024 with third-place Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, down $26.8 billion year-to-date.

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Why It's Important: With Nvidia shares trading lower after second-quarter financial results, many analysts see a potential buying opportunity and call the semiconductor company one of the best ways to play the growth of artificial intelligence.

Huang's wealth is mostly tied to the stock performance of Nvidia, which means he could continue to climb up the billionaires' list if the semiconductor company can outperform the market and other stocks tied to those on the list.

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