Nvidia employees are set to receive a boost in compensation through a special restricted stock units (RSU) grant known as the “Jensen special grant.” The one-off grant is named after CEO Jensen Huang, who is valued at $75 billion and ranks 20th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This grant is an additional 25% of the initial RSUs given to employees when they joined and aims to increase employee wealth.
The $2.1 trillion company initiated its annual performance review cycle on April 1, with appraisal meetings revealing the special grant to employees. The number of RSUs employees receive is based on Nvidia’s average closing stock price of $898.20 for the 30 calendar days ending March 29. This grant will vest over a four-year period, starting with a 6.25% portion on September 18 and the remaining distributed in equal quarterly installments.
In addition to this special grant, many recent hires were given stock options valued at $200,000 that would vest over four years. These employees are now slated to receive an extra $50,000 of RSUs. This grant complements the annual equity refreshers received by employees each quarter based on individual performance. The Jensen special grant is seen as a way to ensure that employees continue to benefit from the company’s growth, even if the share price were to decline in the future.
Nvidia has seen significant growth over the past year and is currently one of the most valuable companies in the market due to its high-quality chips critical for applications like ChatGPT. Its revenue reached $22.1 billion in the fourth quarter alone, but it faces stiff competition in the AI chip market, which could impact its future growth trajectory. Despite this competition, predictions suggest that Nvidia could reach a market value of $6 trillion in time
