Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the world’s eighth-richest person with a $167 billion fortune, has a blunt message for fellow billionaires eyeing the exits from California. “I say to everybody, ‘Move to California, don’t leave.’ It’s the highest taxes in the world, but it’s okay,” he declared last week at Stanford Graduate School of Business, sharing a stage with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). The weather helps, sure. But Huang’s real anchor? Silicon Valley’s unmatched talent pool.
Others aren’t buying it. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin—they’ve bolted to no-tax havens like Nevada and Florida amid talk of a one-time 5% wealth tax on California’s billionaires. The measure needs 875,000 signatures by June 25 to hit the November ballot. For Huang, that levy would sting: over $8 billion from his net worth alone. Yet he shrugs it off. Back in January, he told Bloomberg Television, “I haven’t thought about it even once.” We chose Silicon Valley. Whatever taxes they apply, so be it.
Huang’s stance cuts against the tide. California already claims the nation’s highest income tax rates, topping 13% for top earners. Add property taxes, sales levies—and now this wealth grab—and critics warn of a hollowed-out tech core. Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes it, fretting over lost revenue if the rich flee. Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, worth $3.6 billion, blasted Khanna online: “You are fighting to force founders like me to sell huge chunks of our companies to pay for fraud, waste, and political favors.”
Khanna, undeterred, pushes back hard. The Silicon Valley congressman co-sponsored the federal “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act” with Sen. Bernie Sanders in March—a 5% annual wealth tax on over 1,000 U.S. billionaires. Last December, he channeled FDR on social media about departing tycoons: if they leave over the tax, “I will miss them very much.” That drew fire. Venture capitalist Ethan Agarwal launched a primary challenge. Former Google chair Eric Schmidt funneled cash into a super PAC against him. Khanna’s bet: taxes won’t deter builders like Huang, who started Nvidia in 1993 without fretting future levies.
Huang agrees. “We work in Silicon Valley because that’s where the talent pool is,” he said. Nvidia plants offices globally wherever brains cluster. Taxes? Secondary. His words echo amid California’s billionaire drain—Peter Thiel, David Sacks, even Starbucks’ Howard Schultz have shifted bases. A Fortune tally tracks dozens relocating, chasing zero state income tax in Florida or Texas.
But Huang sees deeper stakes. At Stanford, conversation veered to AI’s job perils—a hot worry in a state birthing the tech. Pessimists predict mass unemployment. Huang calls it wrong. “I think the narratives of AI destroying jobs is not going to help America. First of all, it’s just false.” Take radiologists. Geoffrey Hinton warned in 2016 AI would wipe them out. A decade on? Every scan now runs through AI assistants. Yet the field swells—up 25% by 2055, per the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute. Why? Tasks automate. Jobs evolve. Radiologists handle more patients, faster.
Huang personalizes it. Typing and talking—his daily grind—AI now crushes at superhuman speeds. Busier than ever. The point lands sharp. Technology reshapes work, doesn’t erase it.
California’s tax fight tests this resilience. Proponents eye funds for strained services—healthcare, schools—amid federal cuts threatening 83 hospitals, as Patch reports. Critics like Stanford’s Joshua Rauh crunch numbers: the tax could quadruple hits on founders’ voting shares, treating Zuckerberg or Brin as trillionaires. Behavioral shifts loom—less risk-taking, more exits.
Huang bets on staying power. Others vote with feet. Silicon Valley’s future hangs here. Talent sticks if the pie grows, taxes or no. But if enough leave, what’s left to tax? Khanna faces that in his district, where tech donors revolt. Newsom weighs ballot chaos. Huang, leather jacket on, just builds.
His Nvidia rides AI’s boom—stock up triple-digits lately. California claims 37 times Austin’s venture capital, dwarfs Florida. Yet challengers rise: Miami courts founders, Texas lures with cheap energy. Huang’s plea: don’t go. Weather’s great. Talent’s better.
One billionaire holds firm. Will others follow? Or does Huang stand alone—as the last big name taxing himself to stay.
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