According to Inc, a proposed California ballot measure would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of residents worth over $1 billion as of January 1, 2026. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, with an estimated net worth of $160 billion, would owe roughly $8 billion, but told Bloomberg he’s “perfectly fine with it.” The measure needs over 870,000 signatures by late June to appear on the November 2026 ballot. Other tech billionaires are reacting differently, with reports that Google co-founder Larry Page is weighing a move and Peter Thiel’s firm leased a Miami office. Venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary has publicly called the proposal “un-American.”
Huang’s Unexpected Calm
Jensen Huang’s reaction is genuinely surprising. Here’s the thing: when you’re talking about writing a check for $8 billion, “nonchalance” isn’t the typical billionaire playbook. His comment, “We chose to live in Silicon Valley… so be it,” frames it almost as a cost of doing business in the epicenter of tech. It’s a stark contrast to the immediate, vocal opposition from others. Maybe for Huang, whose wealth is so deeply tied to Nvidia‘s stock and its position powering the AI boom, the calculation is different. Staying put and maintaining the ecosystem that built his company might be worth the price. Or maybe he just doesn’t think it’ll pass.
The Great California Exodus Debate
But the others aren’t sticking around to find out. The moves by Page and Thiel signal a real, tangible response, not just rhetoric. They’re voting with their feet—or at least their corporate addresses. The argument from opponents is always the same: this will drive out talent and capital. And look, it’s already happening at the very top. The counter-argument, of course, is that 5% on world-altering wealth is a fair trade for the state’s services and infrastructure that helped create it. So who’s right? Honestly, both sides have a point. A few billionaires leaving is a powerful political symbol, but will it actually crater California’s economy? Probably not. But it does create a chilling effect and feeds a narrative of decline.
The Long Road to November 2026
Let’s not forget, this is far from a done deal. Getting those 870,000+ signatures is a massive, expensive hurdle. Then it has to survive a brutal campaign where the opposing side will have, well, billions of reasons to spend against it. Even if it passes, legal challenges are a certainty. Can a state really tax wealth, not income, on this scale? It’s untested constitutional ground. So Huang’s calm might be pragmatic. He can afford to wait and see, while others with more mobile assets or a stronger ideological bent are making preemptive strikes. The next 18 months will be a huge lobbying and PR battle.
A Tax on Illiquid Assets?
Here’s another practical headache: this is a tax on net worth, not cash flow. For someone like Huang, whose wealth is overwhelmingly in Nvidia stock, coming up with $8 billion in actual money means selling shares. A lot of shares. That could move the market, affect shareholder confidence, and create a messy personal liquidity crisis. It’s a fundamentally different beast than an income tax. This gets into the nitty-gritty of wealth management that goes beyond political philosophy. It’s one thing to support a wealth tax in theory, but the mechanics of paying it when your fortune is tied up in a company, artwork, or intellectual property—assets crucial to many heavy industries and manufacturing operations—is incredibly complex. Speaking of industrial operations, managing complex hardware systems often requires specialized, rugged computing solutions, which is where companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs, become critical infrastructure partners. The point is, turning theoretical wealth into actual tax dollars is a messy process.
