Jensen Huang, Who Ate Chicken in Korea... No Wonder?He's a Regular at a Chicken Restaurant in Silicon Valley

Food Preferences of Silicon Valley Billionaires
From Street Food to Smoked Meats
Over 30 Years of a Plant-Based Diet for Anti-Aging

What kind of food do Silicon Valley billionaires usually enjoy? Since Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, held a "chimaek" (chicken and beer) meeting at Kkanbu Chicken during the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, public interest in the everyday eating habits of billionaires has been growing. Let's take a look at the diverse food preferences of top tech company leaders.

Jensen Huang, a Street Food Enthusiast... The Simple Tastes of Tech Billionaires

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is offering chicken to citizens during a meeting with Lee Jae-yong, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, and Chung Eui-sun, Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, at Kkanbu Chicken in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on the 30th of last month. Photo by Jo Yongjun

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in July, CEO Huang, with a net worth of 143 billion dollars (approximately 207 trillion won), is known for enjoying simple meals. One of his favorite menus is Asian street food. CEO Huang is a regular at "99 Chicken," a Korean-style chicken restaurant in Silicon Valley, where Nvidia's headquarters is located. Whenever he visits his hometown in Taiwan, he always shops for food ingredients at the night markets in Taipei. In fact, there is even a map in Taiwan that highlights all the stores within the markets that CEO Huang has visited.

CEO Huang is not the only tech executive who enjoys simple meals. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and currently ranked number one in global wealth, is known to mainly eat hamburgers, sandwiches, and donuts, often accompanied by Coke Zero. However, unlike CEO Huang, who genuinely loves street food, CEO Musk values the "efficiency" of burgers. He prefers foods that can be eaten with one hand while working. In a 2017 interview with Business Insider, CEO Musk stated, "I have to finish lunch within five minutes during meetings."

In November last year, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, had lunch with U.S. President Donald Trump and others, enjoying hamburgers. He is known to prefer meals like burgers, donuts, and sandwiches that can be eaten while working. Photo captured from X.

Masayoshi Son, Chairman of SoftBank, who is a symbol of self-made Japanese entrepreneurs, is also known as a business leader who prefers efficient meals. According to the Japanese magazine Modern Business, Chairman Son's favorite foods are donburi dishes such as gyudon and mapo tofu over rice, and he is also known to enjoy convenience store lunch boxes and pork cutlets. It is said that Chairman Son rarely spends more than 1,000 yen (about 9,500 won) on a single meal.

Some Prefer Smoked Meats and Unique Diets

Not all billionaires seek only fast and inexpensive food. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, is famous as a "barbecue enthusiast." In particular, Zuckerberg's favorite menu is smoked meat, which is cooked slowly over smoke for a long period of time. In 2016, Zuckerberg drew attention by broadcasting a live video on Facebook, showing himself cooking meat for 32 minutes while showing off his barbecue equipment.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, is known as an enthusiastic barbecue enthusiast who filmed and uploaded a video explaining the smoking equipment he personally acquired for over 30 minutes. YouTube capture

Among billionaires, the person with the most unique diet is Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, who is the world's second-richest person after CEO Musk. CEO Ellison is known to have maintained a diet consisting only of fruits, vegetables, and fish for over 30 years. Gina Smith, an American tech entrepreneur who co-founded and ran the internet company New Domain with CEO Ellison, wrote on her personal blog in 2018, "Ellison works out intensely every day and has always maintained a disciplined diet. His eating habits have continued at least since the 1990s."

Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, is known to have adhered to a strict diet for over 30 years. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

She added, "Ellison calls himself a vege-aquarian (someone who eats only seafood and vegetables). He never touches alcohol, and his drinks of choice are alcohol, green tea, or carrot juice. All of this strict management is for anti-aging purposes."