Meet the world’s accidental richest women – what do the tech divorcees do with their money? - The Independent
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If Lori Huang has recovered from the world turning its eyes to her husband’s espionage-infused love life, she should be lawyering up right now. The former Nvidia CEO’s wife of over 40 years could stand to become one of the richest women in the world should she divorce Jensen; He’s currently under investigation for his extramarital affair with Alice Huang (no relation), whom intelligence agencies have alleged is a Chinese spy, which the country’s government has denied. On top of that, it’s also emerged that the 63-year-old had an affair with his subordinate: Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare. Spy drama aside, it’s a big old mess.
Jensen Huang had an estimated net worth of close to $200bn before this dirty laundry was aired. As Nvidia shares plummeted in the wake of the news, his stocks took a hit – but he’s still thought to have around $148bn to burn, despite rapidly sliding down Bloomberg’s Billionaires index. As such, speculation has started over whether the leather jacket-loving tech bro has a prenuptial agreement in place. It seems unlikely; Lori was his college sweetheart, with the pair meeting in an electrical engineering class at Oregon State University in the Eighties, long before Nvidia launched and he made his astronomically large fortune.
If there’s no prenup, the Huangs could overtake Bill and Melinda French Gates’ $76bn divorce with their own supersonically expensive separation. The couple live in California in a $38m (£29m) mansion on San Francisco’s Billionaires’ Row, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. There, the state’s law says that anything earned during a marriage is community property and, as such, should be split equally during a divorce, meaning Lori could earn an even split of Jensen’s 12-figure fortune, if she ultimately decides to pack up and leave him.
Notably, Jensen has publicly acknowledged Lori’s involvement in the company that made him a billionaire, telling the Singapore-based media outlet CNA earlier this year that “every moment of Nvidia, she was there”.
With these many millions in mind, it’s no surprise that tech billionaire break-ups now garner as much attention (if not more) as celebrities. Before Melinda walked away with over $50bn in 2021, Jeff Bezos’s first wife, Mackenzie Scott, earned $38.3bn (£28.8bn) from her separation from the Amazon founder. Although small fry comparatively, Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s second wife Nicole Shanahan also received a payout of more than $1bn after she filed in 2022.
It’s fun to think about what one might do with that sudden influx of cash a tech billionaire split provides. Shanahan has undergone a surprising transformation since her divorce payout. Once a Democrat, lawyer and tech entrepreneur, she’s now a pro-Trump health influencer, who peddles out questionable medical views online. She says she’s on a mission to “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) and even hinted at running for governor of California, after being Robert F Kennedy Jr’s running mate in 2024 and funnelling at least $8m into their campaign.
Mackenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates have travelled down a more serious-minded philanthropic track since their separations, with the former donating over $26.3bn (£19.83bn) to public schools, affordable housing, community health and disaster recovery since 2019. Similarly, French Gates has been spending the vast majority of her multi-billion-dollar fortune on philanthropy, investing and policy advocacy since 2021, with $1bn of her fortune pledged towards organisations working to advance women’s health in 2024. “I am pointing in a direction, I hope, for other philanthropists or even other governments,” she said.
Up until now, Lori has lived a largely private life. She never gives press interviews and rarely joins Jensen at event appearances, aside from a state dinner for Chinese president Xi Jinping held by Donald Trump at the White House in September this year, and the Breakthrough Prize Ceremony (often called the Oscars of Science) in Santa Monica in April.
Instead, she has sat in the audience, proudly watching on from the crowd, as her husband takes to the stage. As such, it seems unlikely – although not out of the question – that the mother of two (the pair have one daughter, Madison, 35, and a son, Spencer, 36, who both work at Nvidia) would pursue a career in politics or anything else forward-facing.
Currently, Lori serves as president of the couple’s $9bn Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation, which she and her husband established in 2007. Much like with French Gates and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lori may choose to step down from the organisation and redirect her focus into her own philanthropic project in the event of a separation.
During her time at the helm of the foundation, the charity has supported higher education, public health, science, technology and STEM initiatives and donated $50m to Oregon State University, where they met, to help establish a new research and education centre focused on AI robotics, material science, and other fields. Neither Lori nor the foundation has issued a statement following the reports of Jensen’s infidelities and eventual resignation.
Jensen admitted in a company memo made public on 8 November to his extramarital actions: “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry,” he said.
Lori, born Lori Mills, is yet to reveal what her next step is, but if she follows a similar path to French Gates, Scott and Shanahan, she has the support of the internet (and, probably, the law) to make Jensen’s leather jacket pockets hurt. As one user, quoting Ivana Trump’s cameo in Hugh Wilson’s 1996 comedy First Wives Club, said: “Don’t get mad, get everything.”
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