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J.ensen Huang, the Nvidia CEO who just resigned following his affair with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy, has a signature aesthetic that sets him apart from Silicon Valley’s group of tech bros. In a filthy cesspool filled with zippers and down jackets, Huang, 63, delivers keynote speeches, participates in conference calls and even goes out for drinks with his mistress in his trademark leather jacket. He is a connoisseur of these luxury jackets. His favorites include a $9,000 Tom Ford number featuring crocodile embossing and another biker style design with a bold snap collar. The warning signs were there all along: It’s the wardrobe equivalent of maxing out your line of credit on a Porsche 911 in a midlife crisis.
But Huang’s sartorial affiliations follow a technological model. It seems that to succeed in Silicon Valley, you need a brand uniform. The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs started the trend with his black Issey Miyake turtleneck, blue Levi’s 501s and New Balance sneakers. However, among the new generation of AI and social media overlords, having a distinct uniform has become a prerequisite even before delivering your first TED talk on the future of AI chips or your company’s blood testing capabilities. Below, we take a look at the uniforms of the evil tech billionaires — some fallen, some still standing — and what their sartorial choices say about them.
Elizabeth Holmes
The most distinctive uniform of all is Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of Theranos who is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors. His attitude has been satirized ad nauseam in pop culture. She rose to fame as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, appearing on the cover of Forbes in 2014 in a black Jobsian lightweight turtleneck, cigarette pants and matching vest. Her hair and makeup are just as infamous: unkempt blonde locks pulled back into a low bun, pale concealer under her eyes, thick strokes of black pencil on her lash line, and hastily applied red lipstick. At the time, she adopted the high collar look to exude Steve Jobs energy and assert her power within her company. But this year, Holmes’ famous ensemble became a Halloween punchline following the release of Nathan Fielder’s bonkers documentary, You can see everything. A turtleneck can only take you so far.
Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in 2004, initially had a fairly standard, disheveled tech bro appearance. He wore skinny jeans, a loyal allegiance to a tight gray t-shirt, and a dream for an interconnected future. It was the kind of nerdy look that suggests his brain is so busy being smart all the time that clothes are just an inconvenience. But in 2024, it takes a decidedly streetwear turn. Zuck had grown out his Julius Caesar haircut into loose curls, put on a silver chain, and started wearing oversized designer T-shirts (the boxy kind that have short sleeves but still manage to cover the entire bicep). More recently he was photographed looking like a Yellow stone character in a big sheepskin coat. I’d wager that as Meta falls out of favor with the public – people lambasting the algorithm for brain rot but continuing to use it anyway – he’s trying to appeal to the general public. Call him the tech bro next door.
Jeff Bezos
Like Zuck, the Amazon founder has also reinvented his look in recent years. In his early days, Bezos wore standard, ill-fitting suits, but now he has a penchant for tight polo shirts and aviator sunglasses. These days, he seems to have attempted an improved Iron Man-meets-Mission: Impossible aesthetic, with his bulging muscles visible beneath his designer threads. Sometimes, if you squint a little, he looks a little like Mr. Clean.
Elon Musk
This one is more difficult to pin down. Elon Musk’s style is as twisty and messy as his X thread. He’s had a space cowboy era, a MAGA goth era, and an era of satirical graphic tees. The atmosphere isn’t organized like the rest, but I guess that’s just a testament to its erratic and unpredictable nature. He has just lost $446 million in donations to support the Republicans in the midterm elections, his Cybertruck is being phased out and a damning new film has just been released about him. Let’s not forget the time he wore a gothic MAGA baseball cap, black sunglasses, and a long black coat to the White House.
Sam Altman
The OpenAI co-founder is one of the last tech billionaires who still has a sloppy attitude, Social Network-style of the time. He wears a suit when necessary, but is usually seen in crewneck sweaters with a pair of jeans and sneakers. But with the billions of dollars he makes from his energy-guzzling ChatGPT empire, I’m guessing a stylist-assisted glow is coming soon — like Zuck and Bezos before him.
Jensen Huang
We already know Huang’s jacket habits. But what – or who – is his style inspiration? Interestingly, Huang claimed that it is his wife of 40 years, Lori Huang, and daughter who dress him. He’s been maintaining the look for a while now. He wore a leather jacket on the cover of Time magazine in 2021. Last July, one of Huang’s pre-worn, signed Tom Ford jackets sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $960,000. What does that say about him? That he is a confident man, ready to hop on a motorcycle at any moment? Well, he must have some confidence – he’s behind the company that sells a data processing chip that is critical to the development of AI, i.e. the future of ChatGPT and others – so basically the most lucrative thing anyone in the world can own right now. Maybe all this power has gone to his head, but ultimately his jacket collection also tells us that this is a man who has reached a certain midpoint in his life. The kind of mid-life crisis where you’re caught having an extramarital affair with an alleged Chinese spy. To hell with sports cars and Harley Davidsons.
Gn bussni
