Nvidia CEO on the tax threat riling up billionaires: It's 'perfectly fine'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (I-Hwa Cheng/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Don't count Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang among the billionaires throwing a fit about California's proposed billionaire tax.

“I’ve got to tell you, I have not even thought about it once,” Huang told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday. “We chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes I guess they would like to apply, so be it. I’m perfectly fine with it.”

The one-time, 5% tax would apply to billionaires who reside in the state as of Jan. 1. Its proponents argue the ballot measure is necessary to fund new healthcare and education initiatives. The plan must gain enough signatures before it's added onto the November 2026 election ballot in the state.

Bloomberg reported that Huang's tax bill could total $7 billion if the measure becomes law.

Huang has notably cozied up to President Donald Trump over the past year to ensure Nvidia is able to sell some of its AI chips in China. The executive's apparent comfort with, or disinterest in the tax stands in a sharp contrast to some of the response from other wealthy elites who are strongly critical of the proposal. White House AI czar David Sacks and investor Peter Thiel have threatened to move away from the state.

Taxes on billionaires have failed to gain traction in years past. A Democratic-controlled Congress briefly flirted with an identical tax on the ultra-rich before shelving it in late 2021 due to squeamishness from Democratic centrists. Some argued at the time that it'd be overly punitive towards corporate leaders.

Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi assailed it in private as a "publicity stunt" that could draw a Supreme Court challenge. Pelosi's district encompasses San Francisco.

Progressives in California haven't given up on taxing the super-rich. Rep. Ro Khanna, in particular, has embraced the tax on billionaires. His support has generated a backlash among the executives who live in his Silicon Valley district.

“Ro has done a speed run alienating every moderate I know who has supported him. Including myself,” Martin Casado, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said in a December post on X. “At least that makes voting him the f--- out all the more gratifying.”