Nvidia Approves $150 Billion Buyback Boost, Now Largest in U.S. Corporate History

Since Nvidia's board approved an $80 billion buyback increase back in May 2026 that pushed total capacity to roughly $118.5 billion, the chip giant has almost doubled down again. On Monday, September 28, 2026, the board authorized another $150 billion, bringing total remaining buyback capacity to $235 billion, according to Bloomberg and a company statement carried on the Nvidia newsroom.

That makes it the largest share repurchase authorization in U.S. corporate history, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Apple previously held the record with a $110 billion buyback announced in May 2024, based on data from Birinyi Associates cited by MarketWatch's Emily Bary.

Huang's Pitch

CEO Jensen Huang framed the move as confidence, not desperation. "NVIDIA's growth is being driven by a once-in-a-generation platform shift to AI and accelerated computing," Huang said in the company's statement, as reported by TradingView. "Our cash generation gives us the capacity to invest in the technologies that advance this transformation and return capital to shareholders. This authorization reflects our confidence in the long-term opportunity ahead."

Nvidia said it plans to execute the remaining $235 billion through fiscal year 2028, which ends in January of that year, according to Morningstar's republished MarketWatch report.

Where the Cash Is Coming From

Nvidia's fiscal Q1 2027 disclosure (the quarter ended April 26, 2026) showed revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% year-over-year, according to Nvidia's own newsroom figures. Data Center revenue, the AI chip business, jumped 92% year-over-year to $75.2 billion and now makes up the overwhelming majority of total sales. Free cash flow that quarter came in at $48.6 billion.

Management has said it intends to return roughly half of annual free cash flow to shareholders through buybacks and dividends. Nvidia also hiked its quarterly dividend from a penny to $0.25 per share, a 25-fold increase, payable to shareholders of record as of June 4, 2026.

The company deployed roughly $19.7 billion in buybacks during fiscal Q2 2027 alone, on top of earlier repurchases, meaning the pool has been getting drained and refilled repeatedly this year.

The Market Reaction and the Fair Counterargument

Shares were indicated higher in premarket trading Monday, up 1.2% according to TradingView and up as much as 1.7% according to Newsbytes, ahead of the regular session's 9:30 a.m. ET open. Competitors AMD and Intel also ticked up in premarket indications on the news, per TradingView, suggesting investors read this as a bullish signal for the whole chip sector, not just Nvidia.

Critics of large corporate buybacks, including lawmakers who backed the federal 1% excise tax on stock repurchases enacted under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, have long argued that money funneled into buybacks could instead go toward research, capital investment, or worker pay rather than boosting per-share earnings for existing shareholders. That's a legitimate structural critique, and Nvidia will owe that excise tax on whatever portion of the $235 billion it actually executes.

The counterpoint is straightforward. This is Nvidia's own money, generated from real product sales, not taxpayer subsidies or Federal Reserve liquidity. A company sitting on $48.6 billion in quarterly free cash flow returning capital to the people who own it is making an allocation decision the board is entitled to make, and one Nvidia has continued funding aggressively alongside its own AI infrastructure bets, including a $1 billion investment in Nscale's $3.36 billion convertible debt financing that closed September 25, according to theenergymag.

What's Left Unresolved

The open question is execution, not intent. Nvidia's own numbers show it burned through roughly $33 billion in buybacks across two recent quarters even before this latest authorization. Whether the company can responsibly deploy $235 billion by the January 2028 deadline, without simply propping up its own share price during any AI-spending slowdown, is something only the next several quarterly filings will answer. Nvidia has not set a fixed timetable within that window, and the size of the number alone guarantees Wall Street will be watching every repurchase disclosure between now and then.