Jensen Huang’s signed leather jacket sells for $960,000 at Sotheby’s

A leather jacket worn and signed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sold for $960,000 at Sotheby’s on Friday, showing how far the Nvidia story has moved beyond earnings calls and chip specs. For investors, the sale underlines Huang’s status as the public face of the artificial intelligence boom, with collectors now paying trophy prices for items tied to that era.

Sotheby’s said the jacket received 65 bids and attracted 45 different collectors. The final price came in far above the auction house’s pre-sale estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. CNBC reported that the retail price for a similar garment is just under $10,000.

The jacket was a black Tom Ford leather jacket that Huang wore in 2023 at a Foxconn event in Taipei, Taiwan, according to Sotheby’s. Huang has worn leather jackets as part of his public look for close to two decades, appearing in them at product events, trade shows and company presentations.

Why a CEO jacket drew a tech-era price

Collectibles often trade on scarcity, provenance and the story attached to the item. Provenance means the documented history of who owned or used an object. In this case, Sotheby’s was selling a jacket tied directly to Huang, whose image has become closely linked with Nvidia’s rise during the AI spending boom.

Nvidia makes graphics processing units, or GPUs, the chips widely used to train and run artificial intelligence systems. As demand for AI infrastructure has grown, Huang has become one of the most recognizable executives in technology. The jacket sale suggests some collectors now view objects connected to that boom in the same way others view sports memorabilia, entertainment costumes or founder-linked items from earlier tech eras.

“The response to this sale surpassed even our highest expectations,” Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of modern collectibles, said in a statement.

Sotheby’s said proceeds from the sale will support a philanthropic initiative for the Edge Institute, a nonprofit focused on innovation. The auction house said the money will go toward fellowships, grants and residencies.

Huang’s look has become part of Nvidia’s brand

Huang has joked publicly about his standard outfit. CNBC reported that he said on a podcast in 2023 that his wife and daughter dress him, and that he described himself in a 2016 Reddit discussion as “the guy in the leather jacket.”

Other tech leaders have played along with the image. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg traded garments with Huang in 2024 in a pro sports-style “jersey swap” posted on Instagram. Later that year, at a computer graphics conference, Huang gave Zuckerberg a jacket he had been wearing on stage. “This is worth more because it’s used,” Zuckerberg said, according to TechCrunch.

The Sotheby’s sale turns that running tech-industry joke into a market price: $960,000 for a worn jacket associated with one of the central companies in AI.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.