Nvidia authorizes $150 billion stock buyback bringing total to $235 billion

By Splitfeed EditorialLast updated Oct 1, 2026, 20:00 UTC

On September 30, 2026, Nvidia announced a $150 billion stock buyback authorization, the largest in the company's history, which brought its total buyback program to $235 billion. The announcement landed as Nvidia's market capitalization sat at approximately $5.4 trillion, a figure that analyst Charlie Bilello described as seeming "crazy" when set against the $3.5 trillion combined market cap of all companies in the Russell 2000 index. In other words, a single chip company now outweighs an entire benchmark of roughly 2,000 smaller American firms.

The scale of the buyback and the valuation figures it accompanies mark a meaningful moment in the AI hardware cycle. A $150 billion repurchase program signals that Nvidia's leadership believes the stock is a worthy use of enormous cash reserves, and it returns value directly to shareholders at a time when the company is generating revenue at a pace few technology companies have matched. At the same time, a separate line of analysis, reflected in a Yahoo Finance piece from September 29, raises the question of whether the market is actually underpricing Nvidia even at current levels, a debate that cuts against the instinct that a $5.4 trillion valuation must represent a ceiling. A further piece published October 1 shifts attention from the buyback itself to where the rest of Nvidia's cash is being deployed, suggesting that capital allocation strategy, not just the headline repurchase figure, is what sophisticated observers are tracking.

None of the three camps, Pro-AI, Anti-AI, or Middle Ground, had published specific reactions to this story at the time of writing. Pro-AI voices would typically treat a buyback of this size as confirmation that AI infrastructure spending is translating into durable corporate profit, and that Nvidia's dominance in the space remains intact. Anti-AI commentators would more likely focus on whether a valuation surpassing the entire Russell 2000 represents a speculative bubble tied to AI hype rather than sustainable fundamentals. Middle Ground observers would probably acknowledge Nvidia's genuine earnings power while flagging concentration risk and the dangers of a market so dependent on a single supplier.

The argument about whether Nvidia is fairly valued, overvalued, or still underpriced is unlikely to resolve without either a meaningful slowdown in data center orders or continued blowout earnings reports. Nvidia's next quarterly results would be the clearest near-term test of which side of that debate has the stronger case.