Jensen Huang seems unfazed by the prospect of a potential $7.75 billion tax bill.
That’s how much the Nvidia CEO could end up owing the state of California if a proposed ballot measure succeeds in implementing a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s billionaires. Huang, whose $155 billion net worth makes him the world’s ninth-wealthiest person — according to a Jan. 6 Bloomberg estimate — would be “perfectly fine” with that outcome, he told Bloomberg Television on Tuesday.
“I’ve got to tell you, I have not even thought about it once,” said Huang, 62, when asked if the proposed tax concerns him. “We chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes they would like to apply, so be it. I’m perfectly fine with it.”
The ballot initiative, proposed in November by a healthcare workers’ union and championed by lawmakers including Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., would levy a 5% tax on the total assets of anyone with a net worth exceeding $1.1 billion who resided in California as of the start of 2026. The initiative would direct the tax funds to California’s health care budget — which faces a significant shortfall following federal spending cuts — and public school and food assistance programs.
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The initiative needs to obtain more than 870,000 signatures to land on the state’s November 2026 ballot, at which point California voters would decide whether or not to put it into effect. If it were to succeed, billionaires currently residing in California would be taxed on all assets of value, including any stocks or businesses they own, regardless of whether they move out of the state in 2026.
Real estate assets would be excluded from the tax, because residents already pay property taxes, according to an analysis by California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. Billionaires would be allowed to spread their payments over five years under the proposal.
Proponents say the tax could ultimately raise roughly $100 billion from the state’s 200 wealthiest individuals, including Huang. While the Nvidia CEO has never released a full breakdown of his assets, Forbes estimates that the vast majority of his wealth comes from his ownership of roughly 3% of Nvidia, a company currently valued at more than $4.6 trillion.
An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment beyond Huang’s Tuesday remarks when contacted by CNBC Make It.
‘We work in Silicon Valley because that’s where the talent pool is’
Huang’s stated apathy over the proposed tax puts him at odds with many of his fellow billionaires in the state, and elsewhere. Billionaire Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, for example, has said that the proposed tax would force billionaire founders to “sell huge chunks of our companies” to gain enough liquidity to pay their tax bill, he wrote in a Dec. 28 post on social media platform X.
“Now me and my co-founders have to somehow come up with billions of dollars in cash,” Luckey wrote.
Another billionaire, venture capitalist and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, suggested in a Dec. 28 post on X that a wealth tax would convince billionaires to flee the state. Conversely, the ballot initiative’s proponents have pointed to studies debunking the idea that higher taxes result in the migration of significant numbers of wealthy people and businesses.
Business leaders including Google co-founder Larry Page and venture capitalist Peter Thiel reportedly considered leaving California before the end of 2025 to avoid the tax proposal, according to a Dec. 26 article in The New York Times. Neither Page nor Thiel has since publicly announced a personal change of residence, and spokespeople for each billionaire didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, whose Pershing Square hedge fund is based in New York, criticized wealth taxes more broadly in a Dec. 29 post on X, writing that they “effectively represent an expropriation of private property and have many unintended and negative consequences.” Billionaire investor Mark Cuban — who has said he’s “proud to pay” a large annual tax bill, but is opposed to taxing unrealized capital gains — wrote “agree” in response to Ackman’s post.
California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom has also stated his opposition to state-level wealth taxes, like the one proposed. If the California initiative garners enough signatures, Newsom and the state legislature could potentially try to block it from appearing on the November ballot by filing an emergency petition with the California Supreme Court.
Huang, however, was adamant that he still sees Nvidia’s location in Santa Clara, California, as a major benefit. “We work in Silicon Valley because that’s where the talent pool is,” he said. The company’s ability to hire qualified employees is typically the biggest factor in deciding where the company establishes a presence, he added.
“Wherever there’s talent, we have offices,” said Huang.
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