San Francisco institutions, from the Opera to Vanderbilt University’s new art college, have come to rely on the hundred-million-dollar generosity of Jensen and Lori Huang. Revelations of the Nvidia CEO’s extramarital affairs have led to Huang’s resignation and speculation about the AI industry’s future.
But closer to home, many are wondering: What is the future of the couple’s charitable giving in San Francisco?
The Huangs, through their nonprofit the Jen-Hsun & Lori Huang Foundation, have pledged $75 million in matching gifts to the creation of a new art school at Vanderbilt University, which is replacing the soon-defunct California College of the Arts campus at 145 Hooper Street
The Huangs had also committed to a $5 million annual donation to the San Francisco Opera in late 2025. The opera — which had shortened its season, at the time, due to financial troubles — called the gift “transformational.”
Reports of Jensen Huang having at least three extramarital affairs — one of which, officials told the New York Times, was with a suspected Chinese spy — have led to widespread speculation about a potential divorce. Lori Huang has not commented publicly on the affairs. No divorce has been announced.
But if the couple were to divorce, it would vastly affect their private wealth. Because the Huangs live in California, their assets acquired during the marriage — including Huang’s stake in Nvidia and company income — would generally be split equally during a separation. That is unless there is a valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement; the couple agrees to a different split; or the court finds an asset to be one spouse’s separate property.
Lori Huang could become one of the richest women in the world near overnight.
“Lori would get a lot, to say the least,” said Ray Madoff, a Boston College Law School professor and author of “The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy.”
One model for Lori Huang could be MacKenzie Scott, who famously gave — since 2019 — $26 billion to charitable causes through her organization, Yield Giving, with the money she received in her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
The future of the Huangs’ foundation is unclear. It only recently began giving in large amounts, jumping from $14 million in grants in 2020 to $126 million in 2024, as the growing price of NVIDIA’s stock pushed up the minimum it was required to donate each year.
A divorce could change who runs the foundation and its future priorities as divorcing spouses may no longer agree on their charitable strategy. Marital separations generally do not touch what has already been put into the foundation and committed, however.
“Any of the foundation’s existing commitments would remain commitments that need to be paid — their divorce decree or their divorce settlement would define if either one of them keeps the foundation,” said one foundation professional in San Francisco, granted anonymity to speak freely. “If they decide to go their separate ways, that foundation needs to still exist until the current commitments are fulfilled.”
The Huangs could also split their foundation in two, the foundation professional said. When Bill and Melinda Gates divorced in 2021, they agreed to try to jointly run their foundation for two years. But Melinda Gates left the foundation in 2024 with $12.5 billion for her own philanthropic work under an agreement with Bill.
If you’re an organization eyeing the generosity of a couple on the outs, “you’d want to maintain good relationships with all the parties you can,” said Madoff, the professor.
“In some cases you might not know who’s going to end up with control,” she said.
The Huangs are the only officers listed in the foundation’s tax filings. Jensen Huang is its secretary and chief financial officer, and Lori Huang its president. Bloomberg reported the foundation has given gobs of money, primarily in the form of Nvidia shares, to the GeForce Fund, a donor-advised fund account the Huangs set up at the Schwab Charitable Fund. The grantees of these funds do not have to be disclosed.
Technically, donors give away their legal right to control money placed in a donor-advised fund in exchange for charitable tax benefits, Madoff said. But that does not mean they don’t have a say entirely.
“They operate on a wink and a nod,” Madoff said of the relationship between donors and the fund, in this case Schwab, holding their charitable assets.
San Francisco may have much at stake.
“Dozens of major programs around the city rely on just a handful of people and their generosity, and those people’s personal lives can have a ripple effect across society. That’s the nature of philanthropy,” said Jay Cheng, a political strategist who stepped down as executive director of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, and does government affairs for the San Francisco Association of Realtors.
Other billionaires and corporate giants have followed the Huangs with their own eye-popping donations to San Francisco.
In recent days, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced that the billionaire Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky pledged $100 million to the city’s parks in what was described as the largest single gift to the city. AI giant Anthropic also announced a $50 million pledge to a donor advised fund at San Francisco Foundation, which will distribute the money across local community groups.
“We as a city are getting caught up in the glamour of tech and newly made wealth,” said Woody LaBounty, a city preservationist and former executive director for SF Heritage. “That is not a healthy model. “
Jensen and Lori Huang have been together long before Nvidia’s founding. Together, the Huangs have watched the Santa Clara-based technology hardware company become a critical, multi-trillion-dollar artery of the AI revolution.
As the company’s value skyrocketed, so did the assets of their foundation, which now ranks among the 15 largest private foundations in the United States, according to CNBC.
Of course, the foundation professional said there’s always one other possibility: “The Huangs might not get divorced.”
