Nvidia stock leaps to latest record — thanks to Elon Musk

Nvidia (NVDA) stock traded above $1,100 for the first time ever on Tuesday, a move that allowed shares to surpass their previous record closing high. Shares finished the day above $1,140.

The milestone moment comes after Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI said Sunday that it raised $6 billion in a Series B funding round, sending Nvidia stock up as much as 8% the following trading day.

The flurry of AI investment has continued to boost optimism over Nvidia's growth rate as the chipmaker continues its record-setting stock rally. Last week, Nvidia reported first quarter results that more than impressed Wall Street with adjusted earnings surging 461% year over year while revenue grew by 262%.

According to the Information, Musk plans to use Nvidia chips for a new "supercomputer" that will be used to power xAI's chatbot named Grok.

"xAI will continue on this steep trajectory of progress over the coming months, with multiple exciting technology updates and products soon to be announced," Sunday's blog post read.

In addition to stellar earnings, Nvidia also announced a 10-for-1 stock split and an increase to its cash dividend — a move that's been echoed by other tech giants in recent quarters.

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Finance following the company's earnings report, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shrugged off concerns about a future demand slowdown after the executive said the company's Q1 data center growth continued to be fueled "by strong and accelerating demand for generative AI training."

"People want to deploy these data centers right now," Huang said. "They want to put our [graphics processing units] to work right now and start making money and start saving money. And so that demand is just so strong."

The company reported record quarterly Data Center revenue of $22.6 billion, up 427% from the year-ago period. In total, Data Center revenue accounted for 86% of the company's total revenue for the quarter.

Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.

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