Chen in 2005.
China Photos/Getty Images
Chen offered $500,000 over the $24.5 million asking price, beating multiple other competitive offers, a spokesperson for Douglas Elliman, one of the brokerages who held the listing, told Insider.
"The [winning] offer was compelling, but we had buyers waiting in the wings," Listing agent Ernie Carswell of Douglas Elliman told Mansion Global.
In 2016, Chen and his wife, Chrissy Luo, donated $115 million to create the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech, which is just a five-minute drive from their new home.
Chen declined to comment on the purchase via his company.
Called the Seeley Mudd Estate, the 14,000-square-foot home is also known as the University of Southern California (USC) Presidential Mansion because it housed the university's presidents for 40 years.