For me the fair outcome would be Nvidia paying the 1996 share-price + inflation; not the 2026 share-price. They could neither force him to hold them for 30 years; not prevent him from having bought as many as he wanted. The only error was they slightly underpaid him.
I can also see why these claims age out; else all old companies would have enough uncertainty they would be uninvestable.
I also wonder if he paid the correct taxes if he earned 1 billion dollars in 1996.
If this claim did somehow go to court I wonder if the question would come up as to what the employee did with the shares he did exercise.
Could they successfully argue that he would have sold the shares immediately so they only owe him cash value plus modest interest?
I’m not a lawyer, though, maybe it’s not relevant.
I think the other reason claims age out is that a lot of potential evidence like witness testimony, documents, etc, goes away.