Kevin Durant’s $250,000 Hugging Face bet is reportedly worth $60M

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August 28, 2026, 8:02 AM

• •Front Office Sports reportedly estimated Durant’s potential payout at around $60 million if Nvidia completes its acquisition of Hugging Face.
• •The article says $250,000 represents a little more than two days of Durant’s salary under his current basketball contract.
• •Thirty Five Ventures, run by Durant and Rich Kleiman, has previously invested in Postmates, Coinbase, Acorns, Robinhood, DraftKings, and Whoop.
• •Hugging Face is described as French in origin and reportedly valued at $12.9 billion in Nvidia’s planned purchase.
• •Index Ventures found that employees at late-stage European startups own about 10% of their companies, compared with about 20% in the United States.
• •The piece says stock-option treatment is still set nationally in Europe, producing different outcomes for workers in cities such as Paris, Berlin, and Stockholm.

Kevin Durant and business partner Rich Kleiman reportedly invested $250,000 in early rounds of Hugging Face through Thirty Five Ventures. If Nvidia completes its reported $12.9 billion acquisition of the French-founded AI company, that stake could be worth about $60 million. The article uses that windfall to examine employee ownership at European startups, where staff at late-stage companies hold about 10% of equity versus about 20% in the US. It argues that national tax and stock-option rules across Europe leave engineers with smaller payouts than comparable workers at American startups.

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