Nvidia’s CEO Says the Next Millionaires Will Be Plumbers and Electricians, Not Coders

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When the company selling AI shovels suggests you grab a different shovel, it is worth a look. On a Fox Business segment June 25, 2026, blue-collar advocate Ken Rusk relayed NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang’s claim that “the next generation of millionaires will be carpenters, plumbers and electricians”. Rusk’s framing was blunter. “If I was a young man or young woman, I would be running to my technical college to get a degree in electrical work. You will do great, make six figures or better, without a college debt.”

The stakes for an 18-year-old right now are concrete. Borrow $100,000 for a four-year degree where, per Rusk, only one-third of those expensive degrees are in use today, or skip it for a technical credential and start earning by 20. Get the variable wrong and you either cap your ceiling or strand yourself with a payment that swallows a decade of paychecks.

Why the math actually works

The advice is directionally right and badly framed. The real mechanic here is opportunity cost stacked on debt avoidance, and that one is very real. Calling the outcome “millionaire” oversells the trade itself.

Start with the benchmark. Median usual weekly earnings for full-time workers hit $1,235 in the first quarter of 2026 per BLS data. Average private-sector hourly earnings reached $37.53 in May 2026, the highest reading on record. Journeyman electricians in high-demand metros routinely clear both figures by year five, with $85,000 to $110,000 realistic by year ten.

Picture two 18-year-olds. Alex enrolls in a two-year electrical program, finishes apprenticeship debt-free, and earns $55,000 at 22 while the college student is still in school. Sam graduates at 22 with $35,000 in federal loans at roughly 7%, and lands a $65,000 desk job. By 26, Alex is earning $80,000 with zero debt. Sam is earning $80,000 and funneling around $400 a month toward loans. Reaching a million by 65 is plausible for Alex. The driver is the four-year head start on saving plus zero loan interest compounding against the paycheck. The four-year head start on saving is the engine; the trade is just the vehicle.

The demand side is what makes this moment different from a decade ago. Meta (NASDAQ:META) committed $115 million to skilled-trades training in a single year. BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) added $100 million. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) put up $50 million to train 300,000 workers. Over $800 billion has gone into AI infrastructure, and Nvidia projects a $3 to $4 trillion buildout of AI systems by 2030. Data centers, as Rusk put it, are “concrete, steel, wire and piping”. Behind all that is a projected 2.1 million skilled-trades worker shortage. Total nonfarm payrolls reached 159,001 thousand in May 2026, a record. The labor pool to fill those holes does not exist yet.

Geography decides everything

The factor that determines whether this advice works for you is geography. An electrician in Northern Virginia’s data center alley or central Texas earns a different living than one in a rural county with no commercial buildout. Where utilities are wiring new substations for hyperscalers, a journeyman can pull $120,000 plus overtime. In a small town with no new construction, the same license earns $55,000.

Run both sides. A 25-year career at $110,000 average versus a 25-year career at $60,000 average is a $50,000 annual gap, or roughly $1.25 million in gross lifetime earnings before any investing. Same trade, same skill, different ZIP code. The Huang thesis is really a bet that you locate yourself near the buildout.

That is roughly what investing the avoided college-debt payment looks like over a working life at market returns. Investing what you would have paid Sallie Mae is what gets you to a million. The trade is what frees up the cash to do it.

Three moves to make this real

1. Price your local market before picking a trade. Pull BLS Occupational Employment Statistics for electricians, plumbers, and HVAC techs in your metro. The 90th percentile wage tells you the ceiling. If the 90th percentile in your area is under $85,000, the math weakens fast.
2. Target a paid apprenticeship. Apply to IBEW for electrical work or the UA for plumbing and pipefitting. Training is paid, the credential is portable, and you graduate without debt.
3. If college is still the plan, run the side-by-side. Total tuition plus four years of foregone earnings against apprentice wages plus zero debt over the same period. The delta is usually larger than parents expect, even before student loan interest.

Huang is right about where the money is flowing. Whether it flows to you depends on what you build, where you build it, and what you do with the paycheck once it lands.

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