Eyal Waldman

Eyal Waldman is an Israeli businessman, philanthropist, and peace activist. In 1999, he co-founded chip maker Mellanox Technologies, which was sold to Nvidia for US$6.9 billion in 2019. Waldman received the Israel Prize, Israel's highest civilian honor, in 2024.

Biography Waldman was born in Jerusalem. His mother holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and his father is an economist. He has a non-identical twin brother and two half-sisters from his father's second marriage. During his teen years, his family moved to Scotland for 2.5 years due to his mother's post doctorate program.

Waldman served as an infantry officer in the Golani Brigade in the Israel Defense Forces. After the army, he studied for a degree in chemical engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology before moving to computer science. After receiving a master's degree in electrical engineering, Waldman began working for Intel in 1989. After four years at Intel, Waldman was the vice president of engineering at startup Galileo from 1993 to 1999.

In 1999, Waldman co-founded Israeli chip maker Mellanox Technologies with three friends from Intel in Yokne’am, later selling the company for US$6.8 billion to Nvidia in 2019.

After leaving Nvidia in April 2020, Waldman founded Waldo Holdings.

Activism and philanthropy Waldman supports the two state solution. After the 7 October attacks, he stated that, "I hope in two to four years we'll be able to do peace and build two states for the two people and be able to live together next to each other."

At Mellanox, Waldman hired 200 engineers, including 20 in the Gaza Strip and 80 in the West Bank town of Rawabi, in a belief that Israeli and Palestinians working together would lead to peace.

In 2024, Waldman was announced as a recipient of the Israel Prize, the country's highest civilian honor. Education Minister Yoav Kisch had previously requested that the prize committee not award the honor to Waldman due to his criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the 2023 Israeli judicial reform.

Personal Waldman's youngest daughter Danielle Waldman and her boyfriend Noam Shai were two of the 378 people murdered during the Re'im music festival massacre that was part of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. When Waldman received word that Danielle was missing, he flew back to Israel from Indonesia and tracked her location via her Apple Watch. Her body was found on 9 October.