Leather jacket worn by Nvidia CEO goes for just under $1 million at Sotheby’s auction

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang isn’t seen with out his leather-based jacket. It is his signature look. He is been sporting them for almost 20 years.

At product launches, firm occasions, and commerce exhibits, Huang is sort of at all times clad in his trademark black Tom Ford leather-based jacket.

Certainly one of them just lately went up for public sale. And on Friday, after 65 bids, one among Huang’s pre-worn and signed jackets sold at auction at Sotheby’s for $960,000, a lot greater than the pre-sale estimate of $40,000 to $60,000.

It is also considerably greater than the retail value of slightly below $10,000 for one of many clothes.

He wore the jacket in 2023, at an occasion at Foxconn in Taipei, Taiwan.

The excessive value for the garment is an indication that collectors need to bid on artifacts and collectibles from the unreal intelligence increase.

“The response to this sale surpassed even our highest expectations,” Sotheby’s head of contemporary collectibles Brahm Wachter mentioned in a press release. Sotheby’s mentioned 45 totally different collectors bid on the jacket.

Sotheby’s mentioned in a press release that proceeds will go to a philanthropic initiative in assist of the Edge Institute, which is a nonprofit devoted to innovation. The proceeds from the sale will go in the direction of fellowships, grants, and residencies.

Huang has joked through the years about his founder’s uniform — telling a podcast in 2023 that his spouse and daughter costume him, and telling a Reddit dialogue in 2016 that he is “the man within the leather-based jacket.”

Different CEOs have observed his fashion, too.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously traded garments with Huang in a professional sports-style “jersey swap” in 2024. Later that yr, on stage at a pc graphics convention, Huang gave Zuckerberg one among his jackets that he had been sporting that day.

“That is price extra as a result of it is used,” Zuckerberg said.