Jensen Huang has distanced himself from calls to tax robots and artificial intelligence tokens, even as the Nvidia chief executive said he broadly supports higher taxation of productive individuals and companies.
Huang, speaking on Fox Business’s The Claman Countdown, said he disagreed with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates over the Jensen Huang robot tax debate. ‘I love the heck out of Bill … but I don’t see what he sees. I see something very, very different. And so my remedies will be a little different,’ Huang said.
What Gates proposed on the robot tax
Gates resurfaced his argument in an essay published this week, writing: ‘Right now, if you’re an employer and you hire someone, you pay payroll taxes on their earnings. But if you buy a robot, you can usually write it off right away as a business expense. The tax system nudges you toward replacing people with machines.’
Gates argued that if AI displaces human workers, government revenues from income tax will fall. ‘A tax would slow the rush away from human labor a little and raise money for retraining and a stronger safety net,’ he wrote.
According to Manufacturing Dive, Gates first proposed a robot tax in a 2017 interview with Quartz magazine, making his latest essay a return to a long-held position.
Gates acknowledged AI’s potential benefits, citing improved access to medicine, education and streamlined bureaucracy. But he warned that world leaders are not ready for the risks, which he listed as stunted child development, emboldened criminals and vanishing jobs for Gen Z.
Jensen Huang robot tax stance: companies hire more when productive
Huang’s view of AI’s economic effect is more optimistic. He said that while the nature of jobs would change, ‘I believe … that this will be a net job creator. However, there are going to be many jobs that will be disrupted and so we have to be sensible about that.’
He pushed back on the suggestion that productivity gains lead companies to shed workers. ‘When companies are more productive, they don’t lay off people, they hire more people. The reason for that is because companies have ambitions … and I would say the vast majority of the world’s companies … have ambitions for growth,’ Huang said.
He added: ‘When they’re more productive, when they’re more profitable, [it] allows us to invest more and go after more growth. Nonetheless, overall, this is going to be a net job creator at a scale that we have never seen.’
The 63-year-old chipmaker boss said he does support taxation in principle. ‘I’m in favor of taxes. And I think that … for anybody who is productive, it’s a great way for us to contribute back to society and the economy. But the fact of the matter is, there are probably lots of different ways to approach this,’ he said.
Public concern about AI and employment is growing. A Fortune report citing Pew Research found that 71% of US adults believe AI will lead to fewer jobs over the next two decades, up from 64% in 2024.
Reindustrialisation and the case for skilled labour
Huang framed the coming economic shift as one of reindustrialisation rather than displacement. ‘We have lots and lots of white-collar workers, but we’re also going to have a lot of skilled labor,’ he said.
He pointed to trades such as plumbing and electrical work as areas of rising demand, driven by data centre construction. ‘Having a large population of skilled labor and people who build things and make things with their hands is tremendous for the United States. We want to reindustrialize the United States. We want to create more jobs. And all of that’s going to happen right now as we speak with A.I.,’ Huang said.
Gates is due to continue his advocacy for AI regulation, with his essay setting out that governments will need new revenue streams to fund the transition away from human labour.
