The California exodus is a very simple byproduct of one-party Democratic rule, with unhinged progressive politicians abusing their tax base through high taxes, overregulation, and experiments with extreme progressive policies that have transformed parts of some metro areas into crime-ridden hellholes. Average people, billionaires, and businesses have all been voting with their feet, fleeing to red states in search of lower taxes, law and order, more affordable living conditions, fewer regulations, and an economic environment where they can actually thrive.
This brings us to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who may be a genius when it comes to AI and chipstacks, but on Thursday at Stanford, he delivered one of his most absurd remarks.
"I say to everybody, 'Move to California. Don't leave. It's the highest taxes in the world, but it's OK,'" Huang told the audience at an event hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business that also featured Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
Huang continued trying to sell folks moving back: "The weather is great." He might not be wrong about that.
The event brought together Huang and Khanna, with former National Security Advisor and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Gen. H.R. McMaster moderating the discussion alongside host Sarah Soule, dean of Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Khanna has faced criticism for introducing the "Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act," which would impose a 5% annual wealth tax on America's 938 billionaires. California Democrats have floated similar ideas in recent months, which sparked an exodus among some of the state's wealthiest residents. The latest to leave was Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, who packed his bags for Texas.
And it is not just billionaires leaving. Alongside an alarming outbound migration of working- and middle-class residents, one recent study found that California lost 789 corporate headquarters on a net basis between 2011 and 2021, equal to about 1.9% of the state's more than 47,000 headquarters.
Jonathan Turley recently described the exodus as a "giant sucking sound" that can be heard in the Golden State, "which is virtually chasing taxpayers and companies out of the state with a massive state deficit, rising taxes, crippling regulations, and wasteful programs."
And while San Francisco and Los Angeles compete for the cesspool crown, Los Angeles County just won that title for population loss.
According to the latest US Census data, LA County lost over 53,000 residents, marking the largest decline in any US city between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, while the overall population loss from 2020 to today is roughly 300,000 people.
Why Huang chose to go against the grain and urge people to "move to California," even as smart money has already left or is still trying to leave, raises serious questions about his political judgment calls.