Why a billionaire Tesla investor just bought 1 million Nvidia shares

By William Gavin

Leo Koguan, one of Tesla's biggest individual shareholders, is convinced AI is not a bubble: 'It is only the beginning.'

Leo Koguan, the billionaire co-founder of SHI International, is Tesla's third-biggest individual shareholder.

One of Tesla's biggest investors, who once called himself an Elon Musk "fanboy," just bought 1 million shares of Nvidia while dismissing fears of an artificial-intelligence bubble.

"I bought 1 million shares of [Nvidia] last night; plan to buy more," Leo Koguan, the billionaire co-founder of New Jersey-based software firm SHI International, said in a social-media post on Wednesday.

"I am convinced AI is NOT a bubble, it is only the beginning," he added.

Koguan's net worth stands at about $12.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Nvidia (NVDA) closed at $180.05 per share on Tuesday. At that price, he would have paid about $180 million for his shares.

Nvidia had 24.3 billion shares outstanding as of Feb. 20, according to the AI-chip behemoth's latest annual report.

Nvidia's stock rose 1.7% in recent morning trading. While the stock has been relatively stable over the past few months, it was trading 11.5% below its Oct. 29 record close of $207.04 amid concerns over the sustainability of AI spending.

Much of Koguan's wealth comes from his stake in Tesla (TSLA), which he has been accumulating for years. In 2021, he became the company's third-largest individual shareholder, behind Oracle (ORCL) co-founder and former Tesla board member Larry Ellison and Musk himself.

Before he began paring back his stake in Tesla, Koguan said he owned as many as 27.6 million shares in the electric-vehicle maker. Although Koguan told Forbes in 2021 that he was "Elon's fanboy," he later soured on Musk, referring to his fellow billionaire as Tesla's "tyrant CEO."

In November 2024, Koguan said he was "no longer all-in-Tesla" and began acquiring Treasury bills, citing his fear of a "1929 type stock market crash" and a potential third world war.

On Wednesday, Koguan said he was still "mostly" invested in Tesla and Treasury bills. In a separate post on social media, he said that Tesla is "the leading embodied AI on Earth."

"I do think Tesla's energy, [Cybercab] and Teslabot are NOT fully priced in," he wrote on X. "So that, daring investors could still buy Tesla today for the future fortune."

Tesla was trading at about $406 per share after rising almost 4% in intraday action on Wednesday. The stock has fallen 9% in 2026.

Tesla's energy division is estimated to be worth $140 billion, or $40 per share, according to Morgan Stanley analysts, who have a $415 share-price target. It could be valued at as much as $190 billion if the company pursues Musk's plans to dramatically increase solar-energy production, analyst Andrew Percoco said in a note last month.

Both the Cybercab, a designated robotaxi vehicle, and Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot are seen as the foundation of the company's future. Much of investors' focus has been on those two products, which would open Tesla up to massive new markets that Nvidia is also poised to benefit from.

Read: Waymo just extended its lead over Tesla and Amazon

Tesla said last month that the first Cybercab had rolled off the assembly line as the company aims to begin volume production of a vehicle that lacks both pedals and a steering wheel. Musk aims for Tesla to expand ride-hailing services to at least nine cities this year, up from two in 2025. In January, Tesla demonstrated its first trip without a safety monitor present, in Austin, Texas.

As for Optimus, Musk has said the company will demonstrate its next-generation robot sometime this month. That version of Optimus is designed for volume production, with sales to the public expected to begin by the end of 2027.

Musk has said that 80% of Tesla's value could one day be drawn from Optimus. His prediction relies on Tesla selling Optimus for work in industrial settings as well as homes.

"We do have some Tesla Optimus robots doing simple tasks in the factory," Musk said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in January. "By the end of this year, I think they'll be doing more complex tasks, but still deployed in an industrial environment."

See: Elon Musk has an ambitious new target for when Tesla's Optimus robots will go on sale

-William Gavin

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03-04-26 1125ET