NVIDIA Board Approves Additional $150 Billion Share Buyback, Total Buyback Authorization Rises to $235 Billion
NVIDIA's Remaining Buyback Authorization Rises to $235 Billion
NVIDIA's board has approved an additional $150 billion share buyback authorization, raising the total remaining buyback amount to $235 billion, marking the largest single authorization increase in history, with plans to complete it before the end of fiscal year 2028. Jensen Huang stated that the cash generation capability is sufficient to invest in accelerated computing while returning capital to shareholders.
This does not mean "$235 billion has already been bought back in a year." The company stated that it will execute the buyback in batches on the open market or through pre-set trading plans depending on market conditions. In the fiscal year ending January 2026, $40.4 billion has been repurchased, with an additional $39.8 billion repurchased in the six months ending July 26. Based on a stock price of approximately $228.86, the $235 billion could buy back about 1.03 billion shares, which is about 4% of the approximately 2.41 billion shares outstanding. The previous record was Apple's $110 billion increase in 2024; NVIDIA itself had previously added $60 billion in August 2025 and $80 billion in May 2026. As of the end of July, cash and cash equivalents were approximately $22.44 billion, with nearly $100 billion in free cash flow for the last fiscal year.
Since Berkshire Hathaway relaxed its buyback rules in July 2018, it has repurchased approximately $82 billion, retiring nearly 13% of its shares: Buffett has repurchased about $78 billion over 24 consecutive quarters, with a pause from mid-2024 to early 2026, and after Greg Abel took over, repurchased about 23.4 million shares in March 2026 and about $4.53 billion in the second quarter. The hard constraint is that cash, cash equivalents, and short-term treasury bills must not fall below $30 billion, and the CEO must believe the stock price is below a conservative estimate of intrinsic value. The comparison shows that the "authorization ceiling" differs from the "eight years of actual buybacks," with a difference in magnitude of about three times, but the criteria are different.
Clients like Alphabet and Meta are halting or reducing buybacks and reallocating cash towards computing power. The market interprets NVIDIA's move as a signal that the chip supplier can still generate cash amidst a wave of capital expenditures, while buyers' balance sheets are tightening. A record authorization does not mean immediate full buybacks; the execution pace will still depend on stock prices and cash.
Mechanically, this is a way for chip manufacturers to return excess free cash flow back to equity accounts. The buyer is the company's own stock repurchase plan, while the seller is public market shareholders. Funds generated from GPU orders flow back to reduce the outstanding shares. The beneficiaries are remaining shareholders' equity per share and option holders; the pressured parties are cloud vendors needing the same cash to purchase chips and must explain the timeline of "authorization of $235 billion, with cash on hand far less than this." Berkshire buys slowly with intrinsic value discipline, while NVIDIA marks its buyback capacity to the peak of the industry cycle with a large authorization scale.
Source: Public Information
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Buffett views buybacks as capital allocation when stock prices are below intrinsic value, having opened the gates in 2018, repurchasing about $82 billion over eight years and removing about 13% of shares, with the ability to pause for two years. NVIDIA treats buybacks as a release valve for free cash flow: first adding $60 billion, then $80 billion, and now adding $150 billion, raising the remaining authorization to $235 billion, with a target window only until fiscal year 2028. One buys based on price, while the other piles up limits based on capacity profits. Huang simultaneously mentions platform transition and shareholder returns, signaling to the market that the cash earned from selling shovels is ample enough to both nurture ecosystem investments and reduce share capital.
The capital path is "customer capital expenditures → NVIDIA free cash flow → treasury stock." Last fiscal year saw nearly $100 billion in free cash flow, with analysts expecting it to reach about $329 billion by fiscal year 2028, and the authorization scale is a prepayment of this curve. The money has not turned into higher dividends but rather into an amount that can be used to buy back stock at any time in the market. Berkshire's $82 billion comes from insurance float and holding company profits, buying back a part of itself that is undervalued; NVIDIA's $235 billion comes from the same batch of ultra-large cloud vendors' capital expenditures, buying back its inflated outstanding shares. Apple remains the historical benchmark for cumulative buybacks, and NVIDIA's recent action is merely a single increase and a record refresh of remaining authorization.
The contrast is clear. Apple has turned buybacks into a regular capital return over ten years; Berkshire has proven with discipline that it can choose not to buy; Microsoft and Google have switched between buybacks and cloud investments at different stages. NVIDIA now stands in a position where "sellers of equipment have more surplus cash than buyers of equipment," with the industry phase being a profit redistribution at the peak of capital expenditures, not a value stock buying back shares at a discount. DataTrek points out that among large tech companies, NVIDIA is almost the only one still able to increase buybacks, indicating a split in cash flow between shovel sellers and miners.
Structurally, this belongs to capital concentration. The mechanism is: training and inference demand piles profits in chip manufacturers, which use record authorizations to pull some profits back to shareholder accounts, and as the outstanding shares shrink, each share's claim on future gigawatt orders increases. The pricing power does not lie in the buyback announcement itself but in whether customers can continue to place gigawatt orders. The authorization can be marked to $235 billion at once, but real cash can only be extracted quarterly from operating cash flow.
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The scale of authorization measures confidence, while the amount bought back measures cash.
On the day shovel sellers start buybacks, miners have mostly already stopped.
Eight years of disciplined buybacks and two years of piled limits are not the same type of capital allocation.