Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday that the Trump administration’s current policies would have made it “impossible” for his family to immigrate to the United States.
President Donald Trump announced in September that employers would have to pay a $100,000 fee for each H-1B visa, a temporary worker visa granted to skilled foreign professionals.
Fan, who was born in Taiwan and later moved to Thailand, immigrated to the United States with her older brother when she was 9 years old. His parents joined them about two years later.
“I don’t think my family could have afforded $100,000, so me, my family and the opportunity for me to be here… would have been impossible,” Huang told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
President Trump’s sudden price hike was a shock to the technology industry, which relies heavily on foreign talent, particularly from India and China.
Amazon The company was the top employer for H-1B holders in fiscal year 2025, sponsoring more than 10,000 applicants, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Tech giants microsoft, meta, appleand google Each received over 4,000 approvals, ranking them among the top H-1B employers.
“Immigration is the foundation of the American Dream, the ideal that anyone can come to America and build a better future through hard work and talent,” Huang said.
Huang added that her parents came to the United States to give their family “opportunities” and to enjoy “this wonderful country.”
The CEO confirmed that Nvidia, which currently sponsors 1,400 visas, will continue to cover H-1B costs for immigrant employees. Mr Huang said he hoped there would be some “strengthening” to the policy so that “there is still some opportunity for serendipity to occur”.
Huang said his family’s journey would have been hampered by President Trump’s immigration policies, but that his changes will allow the United States to “continue to attract the best talent in the world.”
And other technology executives have expressed support for the change. Netflix‘s Reed Hastings called the fee a “great solution” in a post on X.
“This means H1-B will only be used for very high value jobs, eliminating the need for a lottery and increasing the certainty of those jobs,” Hastings wrote.
In September, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC’s John Fort that he supported President Trump’s changes.
“We need to acquire the smartest talent in the country, and streamlining that process and outlining financial incentives seems like a good thing to me,” Altman said.
