Insiders at publicly traded AI companies personally cashed out $7.4 billion near peak prices from May through October — right on time. An index of the largest AI stocks, the PHLX Semiconductor Sector, has crashed 32% since its October high.
Since the start of November, this widely-followed AI index has declined 16% and on Thursday, US-listed stocks shed $3.2 trillion in market capitalization in a single trading session. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100 index collapsed 6.4%.
Meltdowns were even worse abroad, including a limit-down circuit breaker after South Korea’s KOSPI index crashed 8.5%.
Insiders at AI companies, however, are already sitting on cushy, realized gains.
Across 282 SEC Form 4s from May through October, insiders at nine US AI companies cashed out $7.39 billion. Excluding $179 million in tax-related sales, discretionary exits still exceeded $7.2 billion across 243 filings.
The selling was by leaders at Nvidia, Oracle, Micron, Broadcom, AMD, SanDisk, CoreWeave, Arista, and Astera Labs who locked in premium prices.
Among them, Nvidia director Mark Stevens unloaded $407 million in June and notified the SEC of his potential to sell an additional 5 million shares worth over $1 billion at the time.
Stevens’ total sales across five filings this year have surpassed 6 million shares and $1.3 billion worth of NVDA common stock at prices between $210-235 per share.
Four other insiders added $24.5 million to the Nvidia insider selling tally. For context, Nvidia closed for trading yesterday at $181.60 per share.
Read more: Nvidia director Mark Stevens sold a record $411M of stock
A barrage of AI insider selling
Protos has also reported on Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli’s 2026 insider sales worth $750 million, plus three other Broadcom insiders adding $33.7 million.
At AMD, seven insiders cashed out $262 million across 19 SEC Form 4s. AMD plunged 17.3% Thursday to $404.40, down 38.6% from its $658.52 peak earlier this year.
AMD CEO Lisa Su sold 360,000 shares for $169 million, including $55.4 million in late summer. Forrest Norrod collected $34.4 million, CTO Mark Papermaster took $26.3 million, and four others sold $32.6 million.
The pattern of selling high repeated.
SanDisk CEO David Goeckeler reaped $105 million across two September filings at $1,523-1,587 per share, while five other insiders added $26.4 million, lifting the company’s tally to $131 million. SanDisk closed yesterday at $806.43 per share, a fraction of its $2,354.39 high this year.
Over at CoreWeave, Protos has documented $740 million in insider sales after its Nasdaq 100 inclusion. In fact, across 141 filings this year, 12 CoreWeave insiders have actually sold $2.88 billion.
CoreWeave sank Thursday to close 68% below its 2026 high.
Micron insiders harvested $279 million across 18 filings, led by CEO Sanjay Mehrotra’s $182 million worth of selling.
At Oracle, three insiders totaled $69 million across four filings, led by Vice Chairman Jeffrey Henley unloading $63.7 million.
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