By Billy Perrigo
Publication Date: 2025-12-16 16:26:00
Jensen Huang was riding high.
The name of the company he runs, Nvidia, is a play on the Latin word for envy. But when asked last month, Huang could not think of a single thing he is envious of. “I have a pretty great life,” he said toward the end of a 75-minute interview with TIME, before tallying a list of things he is grateful for: his happy marriage, his adult children, and his two dogs, who earlier that day both received the all-clear on their ultrasounds.
Then, of course, there was his professional life: running the world’s most valuable company, worth some $4.3 trillion. “We’re building the most impactful technology the world has ever known,” Huang said, referring to the chips that power the AI revolution. “For any human, this would be a dream come true.”
It’s unsurprising that the world’s eighth-richest man enjoys his life, but Huang may have had a particular reason to be so happy when we sat down in late November for TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year story. A year-long friendship with President Trump was blossoming, and more importantly, beginning to pay dividends. After years of getting battered by U.S. export controls that prevented his chips from being shipped to the lucrative markets of China, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, it seemed Trump was about to hand Huang exactly what he wanted.
That became clear just three days before our interview, when Huang met with Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS) in Washington. After those…
