Former NVIDIA consultant Eric Gullichsen is making a bold claim: the tech giant owes him approximately $1 billion worth of NVDA stock. In a recent blog post, Gullichsen, who was part of NVIDIA’s early technical advisory board, detailed a situation involving stock options granted to him in 1993.
The Disputed Stock Options
Gullichsen states that he was initially granted 25,000 stock options on September 9, 1993. According to a document he shared, signed by NVIDIA co-founder Jensen Huang, these options were supposed to vest over one year, starting one year after the grant date, meaning they would all be vested by September 4, 1994. The terms indicated a phased vesting schedule, with 25% vesting after three months and the remainder vesting quarterly within that year.
However, Gullichsen discovered a discrepancy when reviewing the grant documents in 2024. He found a letter from NVIDIA’s CFO dated April 16, 1996, which indicated that only 15,625 options had vested by that date. He argues that based on the original one-year vesting schedule, the remaining 9,375 options should have been vested much earlier.
After accounting for subsequent stock splits, which he states total a cumulative 480-fold increase, the unvested portion amounts to 4.5 million shares. With NVIDIA’s stock price at $225.07 on September 25, this would value the claim at roughly $1.01 billion.
Conflicting Documentation
The core of Gullichsen’s claim hinges on a contradiction between two documents. The initial grant agreement, dated September 9, 1993, clearly states a one-year vesting period. However, Gullichsen also presented an undated invitation letter, signed by Jensen Huang, which apparently outlines a four-year vesting period for the same 25,000 options.
The CFO’s letter from 1996 appears to align with the four-year vesting schedule. The 15,625 vested options represent 62.5% of the total grant, which corresponds to 10 out of 16 quarterly vesting periods from the grant date (September 9, 1993) to April 16, 1996. This suggests that the CFO’s records followed the four-year vesting plan, contradicting the initial grant agreement.
The grant document itself contains a clause stating that if the terms on the first page conflict with accompanying legal provisions, the latter takes precedence. Crucially, Gullichsen has not provided these accompanying legal attachments in his blog post. Another clause in the grant document asserts its priority over all prior written agreements, which, if enforced, would seemingly invalidate the terms outlined in Huang’s invitation letter.
Failed Settlement and Legal Hurdles
Gullichsen hired contingency lawyers, meaning they only get paid if they win the case. After about a year of back-and-forth communication between lawyers, a face-to-face meeting was held. Gullichsen stated that they offered to settle for a sum significantly less than the $1 billion he claims, but NVIDIA rejected the proposal outright.
Both Gullichsen and his legal team concluded that the statute of limitations likely makes pursuing a lawsuit futile. He anticipates that a legal challenge would likely fail even at the motion to dismiss stage. Furthermore, the exercise window for the options, as indicated in the CFO’s letter, would have closed around July 15, 1996.
Early Days of NVIDIA
Gullichsen has a background in virtual reality projects dating back to the late 1980s. He co-founded Sense8 around 1990. His research in VR rendering led to a fast algorithm for bicubic texture mapping, which reportedly caught the attention of NVIDIA co-founder Curtis Priem in 1993. This led to the stock option grant.
Priem, along with Huang and Chris Malachowsky, visited Gullichsen’s boat house in Sausalito, California, to witness a demonstration of his technology. Gullichsen is listed as an inventor on a 1994 patent related to wide-angle image distortion correction, which used NVIDIA’s NV-1 chip as a hardware example.
When asked by a netizen about his disposal of the vested shares, Gullichsen had not yet responded at the time of reporting. However, he mused during his settlement discussions that he might have chosen to sell the shares had he exercised them, drawing a parallel to investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who reportedly cashed out before a 10-for-1 stock split, after which NVIDIA’s valuation soared.
Gullichsen’s final piece of advice to others is simple: “Always read the contract terms carefully.” NVIDIA has not yet issued a public statement regarding this claim.
