Nvidia Faces $1 Billion Stock Lawsuit from Former Advisor

Eric Gullichsen, a tech entrepreneur and virtual reality pioneer, claims that Nvidia owes him $1 billion in stock due to a miscalculation over 30 years ago. He served on Nvidia's Technical Advisory Board from September 1993 to April 1996 and was granted 25,000 stock options in 1993 after demonstrating his fast implementation of biquadratic texture mapping.

Gullichsen says that only 15,625 options had vested instead of 25,000 when he left the company in April 1996, a shortfall he attributes to an error in the paperwork. He claims that his options were meant to vest over four quarters, not four years, so all 25,000 should have vested well before he parted ways with Nvidia.

Nvidia has since become the first company to hit a $5 trillion valuation and Gullichsen's stock would have ballooned to around 4.5 million shares, each worth around $230 as of September 29, 2026, if it had vested correctly.