Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang might be worth $156 billion, but he barely bat an eyelid at a proposed tax on billionaires which critics fear could push talent out of California.
The proposed bill would impose a one-time, 5% tax on the state’s billionaires, estimated to be some 200 individuals. Even if the indivdual barely makes the billion-dollar threshold, the tax would still demand a $50,000,000 payment. At Huang’s net worth, he would be facing an eye-watering payment of almost $8 billion.
The tech titan seemed relatively unfazed by the proposal—or its impact on the West Coast state’s talent pool. “I haven’t thought about it even once,” Huang told a Bloomberg podcast. “We work in Silicon Valley because that’s where the talent pool is. We have offices all over the world. Wherever there’s talent, we have an office.”
Already, reports are emerging that magnets of talent and investment are considering leaving the state. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has explored spending more time outside California and opening an office for his Los Angeles-based personal investment firm, Thiel Capital, in another state, The New York Times reported a fortnight ago. Likewise, Google cofounder Larry Page has discussed leaving the state by year’s end, sources told the Times.
Critics of the bill have been quick to highlight any exit of wealthy individuals. For example, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents part of Silicon Valley, flagged the NYT story on X and echoed President Franklin Roosevelt by adding, “I will miss them very much.”
Huang was more sanguine, continuing: “We chose to live in Silicon Valley and whatever taxes they would like to apply, so be it. I’m perfectly fine with it, it never crossed my mind once.”
The co-founder and CEO of the AI giant isn’t the only one in Nvidia’s C-suite who will be impacted by the proposed tax. In July, Nvidia’s CFO Colette Kress and its executive vice president of world field operations, Jay Puri, saw their wealth rise to more than a billion dollars per calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.
Their soaring fortunes came on account of the significant stock they hold in the company, where the share price has risen has risen by more than 35% over the past year alone.
While tech giants are facing questions about how to keep talented staff motivated when their wealth is ballooning (thanks to the share benefits they are awarded), it seems Nvidia has so far kept the pressure on with effective golden handcuff agreements.
Huang has been transparent about how lucrative a career at Nvidia can be (even if those employees are later stung with a surprise wealth tax). While other tech giants have scrapped among themselves for talent, Huang said he had maintained his team thanks to attractive compensation packages. “I’ve created more billionaires on my management team than any CEO in the world,” he told a panel hosted by the All-In podcast in the summer. “They’re doing just fine.”
He added: “I review everybody’s compensation up to this day,” Huang said. “I sort through all 42,000 employees, and 100% of the time I increase the company’s spend on [operating expenses]. And the reason for that is because you take care of people, everything else takes care of itself.”
