Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. This occasion resulted in a photo that Zuckerberg posted on his Instagram profile. Captured indoors, both gentlemen are wearing jackets. But not the one in which they came to the meeting. They swapped tops.
One can only speculate whether it was just for the purpose of the photo, or Huang left his luxurious iconic jacket to Zuckerberg as a gift for the opportunity to negotiate a collaboration. Meta is one of the leading developers in the field of artificial intelligence, Nvidia is one of the leading suppliers of AI accelerators, and last week it leaked information that Meta will buy 350,000 accelerators from Nvidia by the end of this year Hopper. If we take into account that the piece costs less than tens of thousands of dollars, we can move in the range of 5-15 billion dollars. In such a context, the most expensive branded jacket (in the context of a possible donation) is really only a symbolic reminder.
The black leather jacket has been an integral part of Huang’s wardrobe for years. In recent years, the head of Nvidia has been sticking to it so closely at public appearances (and apparently not only at them) that he has begun to be perceived as a fashion icon. Luxury clothing retailers have noticed a demand for the “Huang jacket”, so more or less similar products are appearing in the offers, referring to the personality of the IT world.
Six leather jackets in 2017-2024 according to Business Insider
For this reason, Business Insider, for example, analyzed all public appearances for which image or video material survived and found that since 2017, Huang has changed at least six jacket models. All leather and black but done in different styles.
It has also been revealed that the jacket he was wearing during his last appearance at GTC (also during his meeting with Zuckerberg) is a model Tom Ford Tejus Lizard-Embossed Leather Jacket from 2023, the price of which reaches $8990 (less than a quarter of a million crowns). However, given that the Luisa Via Roma boutique listed it on sale for $5,394, there probably wouldn’t be much of a surprise about it being left to Zuckerberg. At such a scandalous discount, any scumbag can buy it, which makes the product lose a lot of its luster. Huang ends up making a change at roughly a yearly interval, so regardless of who left the negotiations at which top, he may begin to consider whether to take the opportunity by releasing a game Blackwell they won’t buy anything new at the end of this year.
